Julian Assange and Bradley Manning put lie to Western pretense of freedom and rule of law


The UK wouldn’t extradite Pinochet, but they’re threatening to storm the Ecuadorian embassy in London to see that Wikileaks impresario Julian Assange is extradited to Sweden where a prosecutor wants to decide whether to charge him for sexual violations, more likely so that the Australian can then be rendered to the US to be imprisoned like Bradley Manning and face the death penalty for espionage. The US denies this intention, though it voted against Ecuador’s allies to hold a meeting about the continuing US-UK assault on journalism and whistleblowers. Can the Western empire let Assange and Manning escape severe reprimand? The two are only the mastermind and the alleged-source who’ve ignited the global uprising behind the anti- austerity movements, Arab Spring, and Occupy. President Obama cannot leave either off the hook without encouraging a deluge of more insider defections. Bradley Manning is already under torture in military custody, but Assange continues to evade US clutches. Should he escape to asylum in Ecuador where Obama’s exterminator drones can deal “American Justice”? The US has yet to condemn a white man to targeted assassination, but in the Global South, in darker-skinned populations, who will know? I favor Ecuador expanding its embassy to more than the first floor office, to offer Wikileaks an entire center of operations for as long as Julian Assange is confined under virtual house arrest. In Assange’s speech from the embassy balcony he repeated three times: “Bradley Manning must be released.” Journalists must be free to expose the crimes of the rich. Citing prison sentences for a Bahrain dissident and Russia’s Pussy Riot, Assange concluded: “There is unity in the oppression. There must be absolute unity and determination in the response.”

Here’s the full text of Assange’s statement:

“I am here today because I cannot be there with you today. But thank you for coming. Thank you for your resolve and your generosity of spirit.

“On Wednesday night, after a threat was sent to this embassy and the police descended on this building, you came out in the middle of the night to watch over it and you brought the world’s eyes with you.

“Inside this embassy, after dark, I could hear teams of police swarming up into the building through its internal fire escape. But I knew there would be witnesses. And that is because of you.

“If the UK did not throw away the Vienna conventions the other night, it is because the world was watching. And the world was watching because you were watching.

“So, the next time somebody tells you that it is pointless to defend those rights that we hold dear, remind them of your vigil in the dark before the Embassy of Ecuador.

“Remind them how, in the morning, the sun came up on a different world and a courageous Latin America nation took a stand for justice.

And so, to those brave people. I thank President Correa for the courage he has shown in considering and in granting me political asylum.

“And I also thank the government, and in particular Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino, who upheld the Ecuadorian constitution and its notion of universal rights in their consideration of my asylum. And to the Ecuadorian people for supporting and defending this constitution.

“And I also have a debt of gratitude to the staff of this embassy, whose families live in London and who have shown me the hospitality and kindness despite the threats we all received.

“This Friday, there will be an emergency meeting of the foreign ministers of Latin America in Washington DC to address this very situation.

“And so, I am grateful to those people and governments of Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, El Salvador, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, and to all other Latin American countries who have come out to defend the right to asylum.

“And to the people of the United States, United Kingdom, Sweden and Australia who have supported me in strength, even when their governments have not. And to those wiser heads in government who are still fighting for justice. Your day will come.

“To the staff, supporters and sources of Wikileaks, whose courage and commitment and loyalty has seen no equal.

“To my family and to my children who have been denied their father. Forgive me, we will be reunited soon.

“As Wikileaks stands under threat, so does the freedom of expression and the health of all our societies. We must use this moment to articulate the choice that is before the government of the United States of America.

“Will it return to and reaffirm the values, the revolutionary values it was founded on, or will it lurch off the precipice dragging us all into a dangerous and oppressive world, in which journalists fall silent under the fear of prosecution and citizens must whisper in the dark?

“I say it must turn back. I ask President Obama to do the right thing. The United States must renounce its witch-hunts against Wikileaks. The United States must dissolve its FBI investigation.

“The United States must vow that it will not seek to prosecute our staff or our supporters. The United States must pledge before the world that it will not pursue journalists for shining a light on the secret crimes of the powerful.

“There must be no more foolish talk about prosecuting any media organisation; be it Wikileaks, or be it the New York Times.

“The US administration’s war on whistleblowers must end.

“Thomas Drake, William Binney and John Kirakou and the other heroic whistleblowers must – they must – be pardoned or compensated for the hardships they have endured as servants of the public record.

“And to the Army Private who remains in a military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, who was found by the United Nations to have endured months of torturous detention in Quantico, Virginia and who has yet – after two years in prison – to see a trial: he must be released.

“Bradley Manning must be released.

“And if Bradley Manning did as he is accused, he is a hero and an example to us all and one of the world’s foremost political prisoners.

“Bradley Manning must be released.

“On Wednesday, Bradley Manning spent his 815th day of detention without trial. The legal maximum is 120 days.

“On Thursday, my friend Nabeel Rajab, President of the Bahrain Human Rights Centre, was sentenced to three years in prison for a tweet. On Friday, a Russian band were sentenced to two years in jail for a political performance.

“There is unity in the oppression. There must be absolute unity and determination in the response.

“Thank you.”

Did Kyle Lawrence represent Occupy CS, as its attention-hangers-on assert?

Kyle LawrenceCOLO. SPRINGS– Poor Kyle. Not only is the newly suspected-arsonist in a hospital burn unit with third degree burns, but his until-recent colleagues are now laughing at his clumsiness and are belittling his motives. “What did his vandalism accomplish?” –his advice-givers ask, as if sensing a teaching-moment for their Youtube viewers. Well, if Kyle Lawrence INTENDED to burn down a civic justice building, as his cohort alleges, he accomplished THAT. You can’t take that away from him, you polemically-challenged pedants!

But my ire has more to do with why you attention-divas rushed out with public musings at all, drawing the media’s attention to Kyle’s participation with the early Occupy gathering in Acacia Park. Kyle Lawrence, age 22, passed through what became Occupy Colorado Springs like many a disaffected outcast. He carried no responsibility as founder, organizer or strategist, and as it turned out, bore most resemblance to the many itinerants with criminal records that abound in homeless populations. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but of course the local media are going to revel in associating lawbreakers with OCS. Why be the direct conduit?

Would the local media have made the Kyle Lawrence connection on its own? Maybe. But certainly not, I’ll allege, with the bells and whistles provided by people pretending to have the inside dirt on Occupy. You’ve insinuated that other occupiers harbor felonious intentions, pretending that you left OCS as a result. What self-aggrandizing poppycock! Can you be both insiders and outsiders? Begone then, you cretinous sound-backbiters!

Presuming you thought your were stepping up to some moral obligation, I’ll ask this: Do spokespeople for OCS need to make a public statement repudiating Kyle Lawrence’s arson? That’s certainly a local strain of the nonviolence pedagogical virus. In my opinion, absolutely not. The act Kyle committed was a crime — what’s that got to do with Occupy? OCS doesn’t condone crime. To address it implies that crime bears some relation to OCS actions. It doesn’t. Who is held to be in favor of rape, robbery or murder just because they don’t publicly repudiate it? That’s nonsense.

Repudiating anti-societal behavior is a trap, actually, to extract the menace from protest movements. Get a disgruntled populace to repudiate all forms of self defense and they’ll police themselves. To ineffectualness, ideally. Mass demonstrations aren’t met by riot police in order to prevent riots, the deployment of police is meant as a deterrent to the people’s will to assemble. Our freedom of assembly is guaranteed by right because our landlords will constantly scheme to ensure we not practice it. Demonstrations large enough, and giving off an air of sufficient stamina, are what it takes to effect government policy. Toothless crowds, not at all.

This differential is quite obviously seen in the abundant effort to keep occupiers from using tents. Daily protests don’t gather steam. Occupations threaten to give them momentum.

Oh, famously –I think mythically– toothless determination can combat segregation, but it’s never produced regime change or any reform having to do with money, especially at the top. What was desegregation but a privilege which one lower class was forced to relinquish to another? Unfortunately the MLK mythology has been used very successfully to inoculate modern activism. Popular protest has been getting nowhere ever since MLK. Coincidence?

So no repudiation of Kyle Lawrence, on principle. OCS is law abiding and like anyone, presumed innocent until proven guilty. OCS has never advocated violence or lawbreaking, end of story. From an effective activism standpoint, it’s important to remember the St Paul Principles, which advise activists not to criticize the tactics chosen by others. It’s obvious to see why nonviolence zealots condemn the St Paul Principles.

Should Kyle’s actions be addressed? Not as yet, they’re alleged, first of all, and second, it’s hearsay. But if we are to believe Kyle’s accomplice, and before accounting for drunkenness, apparently the act of burning the Green Mountain Falls city building was a deliberate act of protest, misguided whatever, yada yada, but it wasn’t teenage vandalism, burglary or insurance fraud.

If Kyle and his accomplice are found guilty, as the crime so far is understood, it was a politically motivated crime and they will be political prisoners. A menace to society, yes, candidates for incarceration and rehabilitation, lamentably yes, but moral degenerates? Hardly. Make fun of them if you want, but their crime was idealism.

Revisiting the Weather Underground’s 1970 pantheon of empire-fighters

Former Weatherman Bill Ayers, now a respected professor of education, was recently nominated for emeritus status but ran into trouble when a right wing blogger complained that a 1970 underground publication coauthored by Ayers, Prairie Fire, had been dedicated to Sirhan Sirhan, the assassin of Robert F. Kennedy. (Let’s not leave aside the possibility that lone Sirhan was the fall guy in a conference room full of CIA operatives, the immediately the suppressed narrative, which would make Sirhan a victim among the 209 other anti-imperialist heroes to which the Weather Underground wanted to dedicate their efforts.) While hindsight might reveal the WUO to have erred with some of its honorees, it seems likely the majority might be worthy of a following up.

Preceding the longer list is a preliminary dedication to the three WUO comrades who died in the NYC townhouse accident: Teddy Gold, Diana Oughton and Terry Robbins.

The full page list framed this dedication:

To Harriet Tubman and John Brown
To all who continue to fight
To all political prisoners in the US

Here’s the total list, for your own wiki googling, alphabetized and annotated. The dedication page of PRAIRIE FIRE changed between the varied mimeographed copies produced by WUO satellite publishers around the US between the years 1970 through 1974. Bracketed names represent people not included on all reprints.

Frank Khali Abney
Sundiata Acoli
Ahmend
Akil
Eugene Allen
W. T. Allen
Gary Alston
Michael Alston – BPP, BLA
James Amaker
Hekima Anna – RNA11
Karl Armstrong -New Years Eve Gang
Atuma
Robert Austin
Richie B.
Baba
Kwasi Balagoon
Joe Bandy
[Jimmy Barett]
Leon Bates
Herman Bell – BPP, SF8
Odell Bennett
Bro. Bernard
Jesse Bishop
Debbie Black
Victor Gerardo Bono – MOSCA
Anthony Bottoms – Jalil Abdul Muntaqim – BLM, NY3
Billy X Boulware
Clarence Jabari Shinda Bount
Joseph Bowen
Raymond Brooks
H. Rap Brown
Henry Sha sha Brown – BLA
Isaiah Brown
Richard Brown – BPP, SF8
[Sarah Brown]
Marilyn Buck
Fred Burton
Carter Camp – AIM
Larry Cannon
Michael Clark – De Mau Mau
Dennis Cole
Oscar Collazo – PRNP
Marshal Conway
Paul Coppella
Andres Figueroa Cordero – PRNP
Carol Crooks
Tony Cruz
E. Dabney
Dalou
James Daniels
Alicia Davis
Tyrone Davis
Alexander de Hoyo
[Albert Deutschmann]
Fleeta Drumgo – SQ6
Timothy Earl Dudley
Ahmed Evans
Jesse Evans
Keith X Farries
James Fedd
Stephen X Ferguson
Juan Fernandez
Micky Finn
Fish
Joe-Joe Fleischman
Irving Flores – PRNP
Allen Fooke Jr.
Robert Foulks
Eugene Gaither
Thomas Gaither
Denny Gathing
Nathaniel Gides
Frank Goree
Ernest Grahm?
Jim Grant
Nancy Harras
Jodi Jean Harris
Richard Harris – BPP, Panther21
Stanley Harris
James Hastings
Herman Hawkins
Robert Hayes
Alf Hill
David Hilliard – BPP
Fred Hilton – Kamau Sadiki – BLA
[Bruce Hobson] – Venceremos
[Jean Hobson] – Venceremos
Mark Holder -BLA
[Doc Holiday]
Louis X Holloway
Hutch
Thomas Ingram
Andrew Jackson – BLA
[Chester Jackson]
Jaja
Patricia James
Ollie Jamonds
Alfredo Jasper
Anthony X Jenkins
Randolph X Jenkins
David Johnson – SQ6
Edward Joseph X. – Jamal – BPP, Panther21
Gari Kaiser
Ron Karenga -creator of Kwanzaa
Muhonnet Kassimir
Ja Ja Omar Kenyatta
Melvin Kearney – BLA
Samuel Killey
Kimanthi
Kin-Du
Stephanie Klein
Komie Kombuibe
Lolita Lebron – PRNP
Russell Little – SLA
Jesse Lopez
Hugh Lumpkin
Albert Lyon
Gail Madden
Ruchell Cinque Magee – SQ6
Louise Martinez
Randy McCleary
George Meritt
Gloria Miller
Armado Miramon
Rafael Miranda – PRNP
Rose Mohrstine
Gilbert Montague
Richard Dhoruba Moore
Obgarofowe James Morse
Benjamin Murdock
[Morton Newman] – Venceremos
Roy Nixt
Karrim Nyabadfudi
Imari Obadele – RNA11
Odessabakely
Alberto Ortiz
Jacqueline Paige
Charles Parker
Darrell Peatry – De Mau Mau
Betty Person
Hugo Pinnell – SQ6
William Poole
William Prather
Eller Geronimo Pratt
Euther X Presha
Arthur Prince
Offaga Quaddus – RNA11
Oji
Outlaw
T. S. Reddy
Joseph Remiro – SLA
Harrison Robison
Rock
Norma Rockamore
Eddy Sanchez
Rodolfe Sanchez
Marvin Saunders
Ruben Scott – BPP
[Robert Seabrock] – Venceremos
Assata Shakur
Shango
Harold Simmons
John Simone
Samual Singeton
Sirhan Sirhan
Marvin X Smith
Nathaniel Smith
Martin Sostre -bookseller
Johnny Larry Spain – SQ6
Gloria Strickland
Kenneth X Swanson
Luis Talamantes – SQ6
Willie Tate – SQ6
Ben Taylor
Donald Taylor – De Mau Mau
James Taylor
Bro. Thomas
John Thomas – BLA
Steve Tillman
Alexander X Tisdale
Francisco Torres – NY5
Gabriel Torres – NY5
Toukie
Tommy Trentino
Herman Wallace – Angola3
Robert Wamack
Thomas Wansley
Mamie Lee Ward
Albert Washington – Nuh – BPP, NY3
Fred Waters
Jesse Watson
Marshall Weathers
Bob Wells
Warren Wells – BLM
Fred Shanda West
Clifford Whaley
Clifton Wiggins
John Wilkerson
Deborah Williams
Ricky Williams
Tine Williams
Robert Wilson – De Mau Mau
Mira Witherspoon
Deothea Woodburn
Albert Woodfox – Angola3
Nathaniel Wright III
Candice Yacqui
Robert Youngblood

William Blum – Anti-Empire Report

Here’s William Blum’s latest essay, on Lincoln Gordon, Brazil, Cuba, and the 2009 Nobel Laureate, reprinted from www.killinghope.org.

THE ANTI-EMPIRE REPORT
By William Blum, January 6, 2009

The American elite

Lincoln Gordon died a few weeks ago at the age of 96. He had graduated summa cum laude from Harvard at the age of 19, received a doctorate from Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar, published his first book at 22, with dozens more to follow on government, economics, and foreign policy in Europe and Latin America. He joined the Harvard faculty at 23. Dr. Gordon was an executive on the War Production Board during World War II, a top administrator of Marshall Plan programs in postwar Europe, ambassador to Brazil, held other high positions at the State Department and the White House, a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, economist at the Brookings Institution, president of Johns Hopkins University. President Lyndon B. Johnson praised Gordon’s diplomatic service as "a rare combination of experience, idealism and practical judgment".

You get the picture? Boy wonder, intellectual shining light, distinguished leader of men, outstanding American patriot.

Abraham Lincoln Gordon was also Washington’s on-site, and very active, director in Brazil of the military coup in 1964 which overthrew the moderately leftist government of João Goulart and condemned the people of Brazil to more than 20 years of an unspeakably brutal dictatorship. Human-rights campaigners have long maintained that Brazil’s military regime originated the idea of the desaparecidos, "the disappeared", and exported torture methods across Latin America. In 2007, the Brazilian government published a 500-page book, "The Right to Memory and the Truth", which outlines the systematic torture, rape and disappearance of nearly 500 left-wing activists, and includes photos of corpses and torture victims. Currently, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva is proposing a commission to investigate allegations of torture by the military during the 1964-1985 dictatorship. (When will the United States create a commission to investigate its own torture?)

In a cable to Washington after the coup, Gordon stated — in a remark that might have had difficulty getting past the lips of even John Foster Dulles — that without the coup there could have been a "total loss to the West of all South American Republics". (It was actually the beginning of a series of fascistic anti-communist coups that trapped the southern half of South America in a decades-long nightmare, culminating in "Operation Condor", in which the various dictatorships, aided by the CIA, cooperated in hunting down and killing leftists.)

Gordon later testified at a congressional hearing and while denying completely any connection to the coup in Brazil he stated that the coup was "the single most decisive victory of freedom in the mid-twentieth century."

Listen to a phone conversation between President Johnson and Thomas Mann, Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs, April 3, 1964, two days after the coup:

MANN: I hope you’re as happy about Brazil as I am.

LBJ: I am.

MANN: I think that’s the most important thing that’s happened in the hemisphere in three years.

LBJ: I hope they give us some credit instead of hell.1

So the next time you’re faced with a boy wonder from Harvard, try to keep your adulation in check no matter what office the man attains, even — oh, just choosing a position at random — the presidency of the United States. Keep your eyes focused not on these "liberal" … "best and brightest" who come and go, but on US foreign policy which remains the same decade after decade. There are dozens of Brazils and Lincoln Gordons in America’s past. In its present. In its future. They’re the diplomatic equivalent of the guys who ran Enron, AIG and Goldman Sachs.

Of course, not all of our foreign policy officials are like that. Some are worse.

And remember the words of convicted spy Alger Hiss: Prison was "a good corrective to three years at Harvard."

Mothers, don’t let your children grow up to be Nobel Peace Prize winners

In November I wrote:

Question: How many countries do you have to be at war with to be disqualified from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize?

Answer: Five. Barack Obama has waged war against only Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia. He’s holding off on Iran until he actually gets the prize.

Well, on December 10 the president clutched the prize in his blood-stained hands. But then the Nobel Laureate surprised us. On December 17 the United States fired cruise missiles at people in … not Iran, but Yemen, all "terrorists" of course, who were, needless to say, planning "an imminent attack against a U.S. asset".2 A week later the United States carried out another attack against "senior al-Qaeda operatives" in Yemen.3

Reports are that the Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Norway is now in conference to determine whether to raise the maximum number of wars allowed to ten. Given the committee’s ignoble history, I imagine that Obama is taking part in the discussion. As is Henry Kissinger.

The targets of these attacks in Yemen reportedly include fighters coming from Afghanistan and Iraq, confirmation of the warnings long given — even by the CIA and the Pentagon — that those US interventions were creating new anti-American terrorists. (That’s anti-American foreign policy, not necessarily anything else American.) How long before the United States will be waging war in some other god-forsaken land against anti-American terrorists whose numbers include fighters from Yemen? Or Pakistan? Or Somalia? Or Palestine?

Our blessed country is currently involved in so many bloody imperial adventures around the world that one needs a scorecard to keep up. Rick Rozoff of StopNATO has provided this for us in some detail.4

For this entire century, almost all these anti-American terrorists have been typically referred to as "al-Qaeda", as if you have to be a member of something called al-Qaeda to resent bombs falling on your house or wedding party; as if there’s a precise and meaningful distinction between people retaliating against American terrorism while being a member of al-Qaeda and people retaliating against American terrorism while NOT being a member of al-Qaeda. However, there is not necessarily even such an animal as a "member of al-Qaeda", albeit there now exists "al-Qaeda in Iraq" and "al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula". Anti-American terrorists do know how to choose a name that attracts attention in the world media, that appears formidable, that scares Americans. Governments have learned to label their insurgents "al-Qaeda" to start the military aid flowing from Washington, just like they yelled "communist" during the Cold War. And from the perspective of those conducting the War on Terror, the bigger and more threatening the enemy, the better — more funding, greater prestige, enhanced career advancement. Just like with the creation of something called The International Communist Conspiracy.

It’s not just the American bombings, invasions and occupations that spur the terrorists on, but the American torture. Here’s Bowe Robert Bergdahl, US soldier captured in Afghanistan, speaking on a video made by his Taliban captors: He said he had been well-treated, contrasting his fate to that of prisoners held in US military prisons, such as the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. "I bear witness I was continuously treated as a human being, with dignity, and I had nobody deprive me of my clothes and take pictures of me naked. I had no dogs barking at me or biting me as my country has done to their Muslim prisoners in the jails that I have mentioned."5

Of course the Taliban provided the script, but what was the script based on? What inspired them to use such words and images, to make such references?

Cuba. Again. Still. Forever.

More than 50 years now it is. The propaganda and hypocrisy of the American mainstream media seems endless and unwavering. They can not accept the fact that Cuban leaders are humane or rational. Here’s the Washington Post of December 13 writing about an American arrested in Cuba:

"The Cuban government has arrested an American citizen working on contract for the U.S. Agency for International Development who was distributing cellphones and laptop computers to Cuban activists. … Under Cuban law … a Cuban citizen or a foreign visitor can be arrested for nearly anything under the claim of ‘dangerousness’."

That sounds just awful, doesn’t it? Imagine being subject to arrest for whatever someone may choose to label "dangerousness". But the exact same thing has happened repeatedly in the United States since the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917. We don’t use the word "dangerousness". We speak of "national security". Or, more recently, "terrorism". Or "providing material support to terrorism".

The arrested American works for Development Alternatives, Inc. (DAI), a US government contractor that provides services to the State Department, the Pentagon and the US Agency for International Development (USAID). In 2008, DAI was funded by the US Congress to "promote transition to democracy" in Cuba. Yes, Oh Happy Day!, we’re bringing democracy to Cuba just as we’re bringing it to Afghanistan and Iraq. In 2002, DAI was contracted by USAID to work in Venezuela and proceeded to fund the same groups that a few months earlier had worked to stage a coup — temporarily successful — against President Hugo Chávez. DAI performed other subversive work in Venezuela and has also been active in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and other hotspots. "Subversive" is what Washington would label an organization like DAI if they behaved in the same way in the United States in behalf of a foreign government.6

The American mainstream media never makes its readers aware of the following (so I do so repeatedly): The United States is to the Cuban government like al-Qaeda is to the government in Washington, only much more powerful and much closer. Since the Cuban revolution, the United States and anti-Castro Cuban exiles in the US have inflicted upon Cuba greater damage and greater loss of life than what happened in New York and Washington on September 11, 2001. Cuban dissidents typically have had very close, indeed intimate, political and financial connections to American government agents. Would the US government ignore a group of Americans receiving funds or communication equipment from al-Qaeda and/or engaging in repeated meetings with known leaders of that organization? In the past few years, the American government has arrested a great many people in the US and abroad solely on the basis of alleged ties to al-Qaeda, with a lot less evidence to go by than Cuba has had with its dissidents’ ties to the United States, evidence usually gathered by Cuban double agents. Virtually all of Cuba’s "political prisoners" are such dissidents.

The Washington Post story continued:

"The Cuban government granted ordinary citizens the right to buy cellphones just last year." Period.

What does one make of such a statement without further information? How could the Cuban government have been so insensitive to people’s needs for so many years? Well, that must be just the way a "totalitarian" state behaves. But the fact is that because of the disintegration of the Soviet bloc, with a major loss to Cuba of its foreign trade, combined with the relentless US economic aggression, the Caribbean island was hit by a great energy shortage beginning in the 1990s, which caused repeated blackouts. Cuban authorities had no choice but to limit the sale of energy-hogging electrical devices such as cell phones; but once the country returned to energy sufficiency the restrictions were revoked.

"Cubans who want to log on [to the Internet] often have to give their names to the government."

What does that mean? Americans, thank God, can log onto the Internet without giving their names to the government. Their Internet Service Provider does it for them, furnishing their names to the government, along with their emails, when requested.

"Access to some Web sites is restricted."

Which ones? Why? More importantly, what information might a Cuban discover on the Internet that the government would not want him to know about? I can’t imagine. Cubans are in constant touch with relatives in the US, by mail and in person. They get US television programs from Miami. International conferences on all manner of political, economic and social subjects are held regularly in Cuba. What does the American media think is the great secret being kept from the Cuban people by the nasty commie government?

"Cuba has a nascent blogging community, led by the popular commentator Yoani Sánchez, who often writes about how she and her husband are followed and harassed by government agents because of her Web posts. Sánchez has repeatedly applied for permission to leave the country to accept journalism awards, so far unsuccessfully."

According to a well-documented account7, Sánchez’s tale of government abuse appears rather exaggerated. Moreover, she moved to Switzerland in 2002, lived there for two years, and then voluntarily returned to Cuba. On the other hand, in January 2006 I was invited to attend a book fair in Cuba, where one of my books, newly translated into Spanish, was being presented. However, the government of the United States would not give me permission to go. My application to travel to Cuba had also been rejected in 1998 by the Clinton administration.

"’Counterrevolutionary activities’, which include mild protests and critical writings, carry the risk of censure or arrest. Anti-government graffiti and speech are considered serious crimes."

Raise your hand if you or someone you know of was ever arrested in the United States for taking part in a protest. And substitute "pro al-Qaeda" for "counterrevolutionary" and for "anti-government" and think of the thousands imprisoned the past eight years by the United States all over the world for … for what? In most cases there’s no clear answer. Or the answer is clear: (a) being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or (b) being turned in to collect a bounty offered by the United States, or (c) thought crimes. And whatever the reason for the imprisonment, they were likely tortured. Even the most fanatical anti-Castroites don’t accuse Cuba of that. In the period of the Cuban revolution, since 1959, Cuba has had one of the very best records on human rights in the hemisphere. See my essay: "The United States, Cuba and this thing called Democracy".8

There’s no case of anyone arrested in Cuba that compares in injustice and cruelty to the arrest in 1998 by the United States government of those who came to be known as the "Cuban Five", sentenced in Florida to exceedingly long prison terms for trying to stem terrorist acts against Cuba emanating from the US.9 It would be lovely if the Cuban government could trade their DAI prisoner for the five. Cuba, on several occasions, has proposed to Washington the exchange of a number of what the US regards as "political prisoners" in Cuba for the five Cubans held in the United States. So far the United States has not agreed to do so.

Notes

  1. Michael Beschloss, Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes 1963-1964 (New York, 1997), p.306. All other sources for this section on Gordon can be found in: Washington Post, December 22, 2009, obituary; The Guardian (London), August 31, 2007; William Blum, "Killing Hope", chapter 27
  2. ABC News, December 17, 2009; Washington Post, December 19, 2009
  3. Washington Post, December 25, 2009
  4. Stop NATO, "2010: U.S. To Wage War Throughout The World", December 30, 2009. To get on the StopNATO mailing list write to r_rozoff@yahoo.com. To see back issues: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/
  5. Reuters, December 25, 2009
  6. For more details on DAI, see Eva Golinger, "The Chávez Code: Cracking US Intervention in Venezuela" (2006) and her website, posting for December 31, 2009
  7. Salim Lamrani, professor at Paris Descartes University, "The Contradictions of Cuban Blogger Yoani Sanchez", Monthly Review magazine, November 12, 2009
  8. http://killinghope.org/bblum6/democ.htm
  9. http://killinghope.org/bblum6/polpris.htm

DC Sniper John Allen Muhammad was early post-911 Muslim Avenger

john allen muhammad beltway sniperWhat morbid fortuity that as President Obama heads to Fort Hood to commemorate the victims of renegade Nidal Malik Hasan, preparations are being made for the execution of another Islamic avenger, the Beltway sniper. As Americans satiate their blood lust against Muslims in the person of John Allen Muhammad who is scheduled to die tonight by lethal injection, perhaps comparisons to Major Hasan will draw attention to the ideological motives behind the 2002 shooting spree. We don’t have to like them, but it would obviously pay us to listen.

Not to excuse the Washington DC killings, nor suggest that the Gulf War veteran and convert to Islam is any less a cold-blooded murderer, but TV crime shows have painted he and accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo as sadistic serial killers, completely burying the sociopolitical elements which tie the snipers to the Global War On Terror/Islam, the legacy of the African American struggle, and its extreme incarnation as the Black Liberation Army.

Muhammad maintains his innocence, primarily because the evidence implicating him remains circumstantial. He was convicted on the strength of partner Malvo’s testimony, and recently lost a Supreme Court appeal. In his testimony, Malvo described three phases to Muhammad’s murderous plans. First was to be the sniper killings, which the two calculated could claim six victims a day. Phase two involved plans to murder a policeman and set bombs at the site of his funeral, to claim an unprecedented toll of police casualties. With money extorted from the government in return for a cessation to the killings, Muhammad and Malvo planned to retreat to Canada, where they planned to build a Utopian community for other disenfranchised African American men, where they would be trained for bigger and more numerous missions against the US.

While I can understand US public figures having to distance themselves from Muhammad, I’m not sure why the organizations speaking out for US political prisoners weren’t showing their solidarity for his motives. Were Muhammad’s ambitions much different from the freedom fighters of the EZLN? Does the rejection of Muhammad reflect the post 9/11 pallor of insurrection in word only?

The case against Major Hasan proceeds apace with the usual unofficial press leaks. I heard reporters site sources who don’t want to be identified by name, in deference to the legal constraints of the ongoing investigation. The accusations they make against Hasan, however, for the benefit of the media outlets, reflects not a concern for Hasan’s due process, but rather their fear for getting themselves in trouble. But the media is eating it up.

No. 1 domestic terrorist Daniel McGowan

The Huffington Post published a letter by ELF/ALF political prisoner Daniel McGowan, who is allowed to send one letter per week from CMU36, the controversial “Communication Management Unit” whose cover-name is USP Marion. According to McGowan, prison guards call it the “I Unit,” which probably does not stand for illegal.

As of May 2009, I have been at USP Marion’s “Communication Management Unit,” or CMU, for roughly nine months and now is a good time to address the misconceptions (and the silence) regarding this unit. I want to offer a snapshot of my day-to-day life here as well as some analysis of what the existence of CMUs in the federal prison system implies. It is my hope that this article will partially fill the void of information that exists concerning the CMU, will help dispel rumors, and will inspire you to support those of us on the inside fighting the existence of these isolation units — in the courts and in the realm of public opinion.

It is best to start from the beginning — or at least where my story and the CMU meet. My transfer here is no different from that of many of the men here who were living at Federal Correctional Institutions (normal prisons) prior to the genesis of the CMUs. On May 12, 2008, on my way back from a decent lunch, I was told to report to “R&D” (receiving and discharge). I was given two boxes and half an hour to pack up my meager possessions. After complying I was placed in the SHU (secure housing unit or “hole”) and put on a bus the next day. There was no hearing and no information given to me or my attorneys — only after a day was I told I was on my way to Marion, Illinois’ CMU.

Hearing the term “CMU” made my knees buckle as it drummed up some memory I had of the infamous “control units” at Marion (closed in 1995 and replaced by Florence ADX: the lone Federal “Supermax” prison). Then it hit me. The lawyers, in challenging the application of the terrorist enhancement in my case, made the prescient argument that if I receive the enhancement, the Bureau of Prisons (BoP) would use that to place me in the CMU at FCI Terre Haute, Indiana (at the time just 5 months old). In fact, on the way to FCI Sandstone in August 2007, I not only saw the CMU but met one of its residents while in transit. Let me back up and offer a brief history of the Communication Management Units.

The CMU I reside in, at USP Marion, received its first prisoner in May 2008 and when I arrived, held about 17 men, the majority of whom were Muslim. Currently, the unit has 25, with a capacity of 52 cells. In April 2009, we received seven new people, all of whom were from the CMU at FCI Terre Haute. The unit is overwhelmingly Muslim with 18 men identifying as such. Most, but not all of the prison, have so-called terrorism cases. According to a BoP spokesperson, the unit “will not be limited to inmates convicted of terrorism-related cases through all of the prisoners fit that description.” Others have prison disciplinary violation or allegations related to communication and the misuse of telephones etc. Here, almost everyone has a terrorism related case — whether it is like my case (destruction of property characterized as “domestic terrorism”) or conspiracy and “providing material aid” cases.

Before the Marion CMU opened, there was the original CMU, opened in December 2006 at the former death row at FCI Terre Haute. According to early articles, the unit was intended for “second tier terrorism inmates, most of them Arab Muslims and a less restrictive version of the Supermax in Florence, Colorado.”

Additionally, BoP Director Harley Lappin, in a July 2008 hearing on the 2009 BoP budget request, said of the CMUs, “A lot of the more serious offenders, terrorists, were housed at ADX Florence. So, we are ramping up two communications management units that are less restrictive but will ensure that all mail and phone calls of the offenders are monitored on a daily basis.”

Terre Haute’s CMU has 36 men (27 of whom are Muslim) and is roughly comparable to Marion’s CMU. The rest of this place focuses on the latter, in which I have resided and of which I have seen firsthand.

You may be curious about just what a CMU actually is. From my correspondence, I can tell that many correspondents do not know much about what goes on here. I hope this can clear up any misperceptions. According to the BoP,

The CMU is [sic] established to house inmates who, due to their current offense of conviction, offense conduct or other verified information, require increased monitoring of communication between inmates and persons in the community in order to protect the safety, security, and orderly operations of Bureau facilities and protect the public…The CMU is a self-contained general population housing unit.

There are, of course, alternate views to the above definition including the belief that the CMUs are Muslim units, a political prisoner unit (similar to the HSU operated by the BoP in the 80’s, and a punishment unit.

The CMUs have an extremely high Muslim population; here at Marion, it is 65-75%. An overrepresentation of any one demographic in a prison raises constitutional issues of equal protection as well as safety issues. Nowhere in the BoP will you find any group represented in such extreme disproportion. To counter these claims, the BoP brought in a small number of non-Muslims to be used as proof that the units are not strictly Muslim (an interesting note is that some of the Muslim men here have cases unrelated to terrorism). Does the inclusion of six people that are non-Muslim really negate the claim of segregation though? What are the criteria for determining who comes to the CMU? The BoP claims there are 211 international terrorists (and 1000 domestic terrorists) in their system. Yet, the CMUs have no more than 60 men at the present time. Where are the rest of these people? How does the BOP determine who of those 1200 are sent to a CMU and who to normal prisons? These are questions that need to be asked — in court and in the media.

Many of the men here (both Muslim and non) are considered political prisoners in their respective movements and have been engaged in social justice, religious organizations, charities and humanitarian efforts. Another conception of the CMU is that it is a location designed to isolate us from our movements and to act as a deterrent for others from those movements (as in “step outside the line and you too will end up there”). The intended effect of long-term housing of this kind is a profound sense of dislocation and alienation. With your mail, email, phones, and visits monitored and no human touch allowed at the visits, it is difficult to feel a connection to “the streets.” There is historical evidence of the BoP utilizing political prisons — despite the fact that the Department of Justice refuses to acknowledge the concept of political prisoners in US prisons, choosing to call us “criminal” instead.

The Lexington High Security Unit (HSU) was one such example. Having opened its 16-bed facilities in 1988 and housing a number of female political prisoners, the HSU functioned as an isolation unit — underground, bathed in fluorescence, and limited interaction with staff. In the opinion of Dr. Richard Korn, speaking on behalf of the American Civil Liberties Union, the unit’s goal was “…to reduce prisoners to a state of submission essential for their ideological conversion. That failing, the next objective is to reduce them as efficient, self-directing antagonists. That failing, the only alternative is to destroy them by making them destroy themselves.”

After an arduous campaign by human rights advocates and supporters, the BoP capitulated, stating it would close its facility (when it did not, it was sued). The judge ruled that the plaintiffs were illegally designated based on their past political affiliations, statements and political beliefs. The unit was closed and the women were transferred to other prisons.

The correlations between the HSU and CMU are many and seem to have some of the same goals as well as methods used to designate us here. Knowing they are dealing with people committed to ideals and the movements they are a part of, we were placed here in order to weaken those connections and harm our relationships. An example is the horrendous strain that the CMU puts on our familial relations — especially our marriages. It was certainly considered by the architects of the CMU that preventing visits that allow human touch for long-term prisoners would have a disastrous impact on our relationships and would lead to weaker inmates.

Finally, the CMU can be viewed as “the stick” — a punitive unit for those who don’t play ball or who continue to express political beliefs anathema to the BoP or the US government. Although I am not aware of the BoP’s criteria for sending people here (due to their refusal to release specific CMU information), it is curious who is and who is not here. Out of roughly 18 codefendants in my criminal case, I am the only one at a CMU (the remainder of them are at low and medium security prisons). The same goes for a member of the SHAC7 campaign, Andrew Stepanian, one of 6 defendants in his case who was sent here for the last 6 months of his sentence. Other men here have codefendants at the Terre Haute CMU while others have codefendants at normal federal prisons. Despite numerous Freedom of Information Requests, the BoP refuses to grant the documents that specify the rules governing transfer to the CMU. Remember, hardly any of the men here have received any disciplinary violations and some have been in general population over 15 years! How can someone be okay in general population for that long and then one day be seen as a communication threat?

So, I have hypothesized about the goals of the CMU. Let me discuss the many problems and injustices associated with the existence of the CMUs.

Due process
More appropriately, a lack thereof. A term I never thought much about before my imprisonment, due process is:

…the conduct of legal proceedings according to established rules and principles for the protection and enforcement of private rights, including notice and the right to hearing before a tribunal [my emphasis] with the power to decide the case.

I was moved from FCI Sandstone, against my will and at a moment’s notice, with no hearing and thus no chance to contest the reason for my transfer. A FOIA request recently received states I was redesignated May 6th, my transfer was signed the next day and I was moved on May 13th with the reason given as “program participation”. Since I got here, I have not had a hearing to contest the claims made in the “Notice to Inmate of Transfer to CMU, ” some of which were woefully inaccurate. Instead, I was told I can utilize the administrative remedy process (which I have done to no avail) and request a transfer after 18 months of “clear conduct”.

The irony is that all prisoners who violate prison rules are subject to a series of disciplinary hearings in which they could offer their defense. For legal units such as Florence ADX (Supermax) or the control unit program, there exists a codified set of rules and hearings for transfer to these locations. The BoP has deliberately ignored this process and has instead transferred us to this special, brand-new CMU without due process. My notice of transfer was given to me 12 days after I arrived!

Similar to the callous disregard for due process (and the US Constitution), there is no “step down” process for the CMU. Unlike the ones that exist at Florence ADX, control units or even the gang units, the CMU has no stages, no requisite amount of time we are to spend here before being sent back to a normal prison.

Because these preceding programs are specifically for prison misbehavior, there is a logical and orderly way to finish the program and eventually transfer. For us, the BoP has set up a paradox — if we are here for our offense conduct, which we cannot ever change, how can we reasonably leave the unit? In its “Admissions and Orientation” guide for Marion’s CMU, here is what they say:

Every new commitment to the CMU will be evaluated by his unit team regarding his suitability for incarceration in this institution. If, for some reason, the inmate is deemed not acceptable for confinement in this unit, he will be processed as expeditiously as possible…

[I am still roughly 10 months from my 18-month period in which I must wait before requesting a transfer. Considering the fact that all my remedies have been denied, I am not hopeful about this.]

CMU as Secret
In addition to the due process and transfer issues, there is the secretive and illegal manner that the CMU was created (Note: for historical perspectives, it needs to be stated that the CMU was established roughly halfway through the second term of George W. Bush and his Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.)

In April 2006, the BoP proposed a “Limited Communication for Terrorist Inmates” policy, which suggested new restrictions for “terrorists” and “terrorism related inmates” such as:

1) One 6-page letter per week.

2) One 15-minute phone call a month.

3) One 1-hour visit a month.

A coalition of civil rights organizations signed a letter of protest criticizing the proposed rules and raising numerous constitutional, practical and ethical objectives. The outcry appears to have caused the BoP to reconsider it and just 6 months later, open the CMU at FCI Terre Haute quietly. Since the BoP never sought public comment on the new CMU, it certainly appears to be a violation of the Administrative Procedural Act (APA), an argument a federal judge in Miami raised in response to a prisoner’s legal challenge to transfer to the CMU.

The unit is functionally an open secret. While the BoP circumvented the standard public comment (and feedback process), it has sought to get around this by describing the CMU as a “self-contained general population unit,” implying that the unit is legally and penally no different than a normal unit at an FCI. There is no mention of the CMU on the BoP’s website (ww.bop.gov) or USP Marion’s subpage on the same site. You will not find extensive Congressional hearings on the subject — other than a July 2008 subcommittee hearing in which it appears that the BoP director was not fully forthcoming on the CMU36. Letters here are stamped “USP Marion,” not CMU, and the unit is called “I Unit” by staff. (An interesting anecdote: while on transit in Winter 2009, I met men from the FCI here and asked them what they knew about I Unit. Without hesitation, they said, “That’s where the terrorists are.” They informed me this is what BoP Staff routinely told them.)

Media queries are met with silence or vague information. Requests by the media to interview me by coming to Marion have been denied — due to it “being detrimental to the safety, security and good order of the institution.” There still is no Program Statement on the CMU — a legal requirement, outlining the specific rules of the CMU and its designation criteria.

Because of this, and the general refusal of the BoP to hand over relevant documents through FOIA, it is impossible to determine the specific reasons why one is sent here — and thus, how to contest this process. In effect, the CMU was created on the fly, with no eye toward legality; they are free to operate it in whatever manner they choose.

Communication Management (The Promotion of Isolation and Alienation)
The most painful aspect of this unit, to me, is how the CMU restricts my contact with the world beyond these walls. It is difficult for those who have not known prison to understand what a lifeline contact with our family and friends is to us. It is our link to the world — and our future (for those of us who are fortunate enough to have release dates). Prison authorities and architects are well aware that those with strong family ties and in good communication with their loved ones are well behaved and have significantly lower rates of recidivism. The BoP, in theory, recognizes this by claiming they try to situate us within 500 miles of our homes. Mostly, this is a cruel farce for many prisoners — I have not been within 1000 miles of my family in 2 years.

The most Orwellian aspects of the CMU are in how they manage our communications:

A) Telephones- at my previous prison, I was able to use the phones for 300 minutes a month — days, nights, weekends and holidays — basically at any point I was not in my housing unit (6am-10pm). Here, we receive one 15-minute phone call a week. The call can only take place between 8am and 2:30pm, never on weekends or holidays and must be scheduled one and a half weeks in advance (we can choose a back-up number to call but if neither picks up, we don’t get a call). The call is live-monitored and recorded. Not only do we receive one fifth of the minutes granted to other federal prisoners but the call is also very trying for our families — all of whom have day jobs and many of whom have children in school. The CMU requires calls be made in English only — a difficult demand considering over half of the men here speak English as a second language (this restriction is not present at other federal prisons).

B) Visits- At FCI Sandstone, I received up to eight visiting days a month (56 hours) — contact visits in which I could embrace my wife, play cards with my nieces and share vending machine food with my visitors. These visits were my lifeline. I got about twelve of them in eight months and it aided in my adjustment to prison.

The CMU restricts our visits to one four-hour non-contract visit a month. One short visit through two inches of plate glass with cameras hanging overhead and my visitors stuffed in a four-and-a-half by three-and-a-half-foot stuffy booth — a tight squeeze for two. The visits can only take place on weekdays from 8am-2pm — no more Christmas or Thanksgiving visits — and worse, no physical contact (Consider what it would be like to have no contact with your loved ones. What if you couldn’t hug or kiss your lover, partner, wife, husband? What would that do to you?) I find myself riddled with guilt when I ask friends to spend $500 to fly across the country, drive three hours (and repeat) for a four-hour non-contact visit. I’m lucky though, having people who will do this. Many of the men here can’t afford it or don’t want to subject their children to this reality.

C) Mail- We can only send out mail once a day and we cannot visit the mail room to send out packages. We are one-hundred-percent reliant on the one staff person who deals with our mail to do so and sending a box home is a laborious procedure. We must leave our envelopes unsealed so that staff can read, copy, scan and send to whatever other agency studies our correspondence. A letter to NYC takes roughly seven to nine days (which should take five). Letters sent abroad, especially those not written in English, could take a month or more — a common complaint of some of my fellow prisoners.

Staff here has an interesting reading of the rules governing legal mail leading to the charge that they open our legal mail (this is the subject of an administrative remedy I filed with the BoP Central Office in Washington DC). The rule states that the lawyer’s name must be clearly identified and that the envelope must say “Special Mail- Open only in the presence of inmates” and yet staff has opened my legal mail that said “Law Offices of Jane Doe” stating that it should have said, “Jane Doe, Attorney at Law”! The staff looks for any reason to disqualify our legal mail as protected and gather intelligence this way. In doing so, they violate the sanctity of the attorney-client confidentiality principle.

Most of my violations have been petty — a package has more than twenty pieces of paper or a friend kindly enclosed stamps. A few instances though amount to censorship and a limiting of political expression and dialogue. See Appendix B for a detailed discussion of these instances.

D) Media Contact- Although requests have been made to interview people in the CMU, none have been granted to date. This is a violation of the spirit of the BoP’s own media policy. There is an imperative on the Bureau’s part to control and ultimately suppress information on the CMU from making it to a mass audience.

Daily Life at the CMU
Neither one of the two CMUs were built for long-term habitation. The Marion CMU was the site of the Secure Housing Unit (SHU), the USP that closed here in 2005. Terre Haute’s CMU is in “D-wing” — the site of the former federal death row.

The CMU was seemingly converted to its current use with the addition of televisions, steel tables, and new wiring and yet it is not suitable for long-term use due to its “open cell” design (i.e. with bars). With 25 prisoners, our movements are restricted to two housing ranges (hallways about 100 by 12 feet); a recreation range where we also eat (consisting of seven cells with a computer, typewriter, barber shop, religious library, social library, art room and recreational equipment); and a small rec yard (all concrete, a lap equals one-eighteenth of a mile, four cages with two basketball hoops, one handball court, a weather awning with tables and some sit-up benches). We are lucky to be visited daily by a resident bird population of doves and blackbirds, and overhead, the occasional hawk or falcon (ironically, as I write this, I overhear warnings from staff that if we continue to feed the birds, we will receive violations). The appearance of the yard with its cages, concrete, and excessive barbed wire has earned it nickname “Little Guantanamo” (of course a punitive unit with seventy-five percent Muslims also contributes to the name as well).

The conditions here are not dire — in fact, the horror stories I have heard over the last two years have convinced me it is far worse at many prisons and yet, I believe it is important to be descriptive and accurate — to dispel fears (about violence, for instance) but also to demonstrate just how different life is for us at the CMU.

There are many things we lack here that other prisons in the federal system have to offer:

1- A residential drug/alcohol program- despite at least one person here having completion of it ordered by the court.

2- Enough jobs for the prisoners here- There is not nearly enough jobs for all the men here and most are extremely low paying.

3- UNICOR- This is Federal Prison Industries which has shops at many federal prisons (including this one outside the CMU). These jobs pay much more, allow men to pay their court fees, restitution and child support and, as the BoP brags, teaches people job skills.

4- Adequate educational opportunities- Until recently, we did not have GED or vocational programs. Due to inmate pressure and persistence, we now have both of those as well as a few prisoner-taught classes but no college courses at all.

5- Access to staff on a daily basis- At other federal prisons, you are able to approach staff members at lunch every day, including the Warden. Here, we get (at most) two quick walk-throughs a week, usually taking place early in the morning. You are often left waiting days to resolve a simple question.

6- Law library access- We have a very small law library here with only twenty-five percent of the books required by law. We can only request books twice weekly and those are only delivered if the other nine hundred prisoners at the adjacent Medium are not using them. We lack Federal Court and Supreme Court reports as well as books on Immigration Law (fifty percent or more of the men here face deportation). This lack of access makes for an arduous and ineffective research path.

7- Computers- We have four computers for our email system (two for reading, one for printing and one that we were told would be for legal but it still isn’t working). Unlike my previous prison, where we had forty computers with a robust computer-class program, or like other prisons that teach a vocational computer course, we have no such thing.

8- Access to general population- Being in an isolation unit makes for a situation in which we cannot have organized sports leagues and tournaments due to not having enough people at all. This may not seem crucial but sports are a very useful diversion from the stress of prison life and separation.

After reading the preceding sections, perhaps like me you are wondering what really is the purpose of the CMU. In short, the SMU is Florence ADX-LITE for those men whose security points are low and present no real problems to staff. From my interactions with the men here, I can say with certainty, that people here are remarkably well-behaved and calm — many without any disciplinary violations. If these men, like myself, don’t get in trouble, and have been in the system for some time, why are we here? Consider my case.

My short time in prison prior to coming to the CMU consisted of two months at MDC Brooklyn and eight months at FCI Sandstone. I had never gotten in trouble and spent my days as a clerk in psychology, working toward a Master’s degree, reading, writing and exercising. My goal was to get closer to home and my loved ones. In April 2008, I filed a “hardship transfer” request due to my mother’s illness and her inability to travel to Minnesota to visit me. I had my team meeting, and my security points were lowered. Weeks later, I was moved to the CMU.

The irony is that I was moved to the CMU to have my communication managed, but what changed in that one year to justify this move? If I was a danger, then why did the BoP house me in a low-security prison? The same applies to many of the men here– some have been in general population for twenty years and then suddenly a need to manage their communication is conjured up. During my pre-CMU time, I had used 3500 phone minutes and sent hundreds of letters. If there was a problem with my communication, shouldn’t the BoP have raised this with me? My notice stating their rationale for placing me here attributed it to me “being a member and leader in the ELF and ALF” and “communicating in code.” But if this is true, then shouldn’t I have been sent to the CMU as soon as I self-reported to prison in July 2007?

The CMUs were crafted and opened under the Bush administration as some misguided attempt to be tough on the “war on terror.” This unit contains many prisoners from cases prosecuted during the hyper-paranoid and over-the-top period after 9/11 and the passage of the USA Patriot Act.44 The number of prosecutions categorized as terrorism-related more than doubled to reach 1,200 in 2002. It seemed that every other week, there was some plot uncovered by overzealous FBI agents — in Lackawanna, NY, Miami, FL, Portland, OR, and Virginia and elsewhere (never mind the illegal wiretaps and unscrupulous people used in these cases). These cases may not be headlines anymore but these men did not go away — they were sent to prison and, when it was politically advantageous for Bush, transferred to the CMUs. The non-Muslim populations of these units (although definitely picked judiciously) were sent there to dispel charges that the CMUs were exclusively Muslim units.

The codified rationale for all prisoners being transferred here are “contact with persons in community require heightened control and reviews” and “your transfer to this facility for greater communication management is necessary to the safe, secure, and orderly function of Bureau institutions…” Should an increase in monitoring of communication mean a decrease in privileges? If the goal is to manage our contact with the outside world, shouldn’t the BoP hire enough staff so that we can maintain the same rights and privileges as other prisoners (since the party line is that we are not here for punishment)? The reality is the conditions, segregation, lack of due process and such are punishment regardless of whether the BoP admits it or not.

Forward!
Where to from here, then? Does the new President and his Attorney General take issue with segregation? Will Obama view the CMU, as he did with Guantanamo Bay, as a horrible legacy of his predecessor and close it? Many people are hopeful for an outcome like that. On April 7th, 2009, Mr. Obama, while in Turkey, said, “The United States will not make war on Islam,” and that he wanted to “extend the hand of friendship to the Muslim world.” While that sounds wonderful, what does that look like in concrete terms? Will he actualize that opinion by closing the CMU? Or will he marry the policy of Bush and condone a secret illegal set of political units for Muslims and activists? What of the men here? Will he transfer us back to normal prisons and review the outrageous prosecutions of many of the CMU detainees? If it can be done with (former) Senator Ted Steven’s case, it can be done here.

While lawsuits have been filed in both Illinois and Indiana federal courts, what is needed urgently is for these units to be dragged out into the open. I am asking for your help and advocacy in dealing with this injustice and the mindset that allows a CMU to exist. Please pursue the resource section at the end of this article and consider doing something. I apologize for the length of this piece — it was suggested to me (by people way smarter than myself) that it would be best to start from the beginning and offer as many details as possible. I hope I gave you a clearer idea of what’s going on here. Thank you for all your support and love — your letters are a bright candle in a sea of darkness.

Fodor’s guide to Denver and the DNC

Marie
To answer the obvious questions. If you’re worried about tear gas, saturate a bandana in Apple Cider Vinegar, and bring swimming goggles. For a tip of where you’ll find the action in the next several days, below is a list of where legal observers are planning to be. Meaning, where there might run afoul. Otherwise check with Recreate-68, Codepink, UFPJ and Unconventional Action.

The purpose of legal observing is to protect the civil liberties of political activists. Legal Observers do not intentionally become involved in the actions or intervene in any confrontations with police or others. Legal Observers strive to refrain from actions that could be construed as participating in the demonstration.

Legal Observers can make the following contributions:

– Legal Observers may deter police misconduct,

– Legal Observers may testify about their observations,

– Legal Observers may assist activists who are detained, arrested, or who need medical attention, by alerting the appropriate support teams associated with the demonstration.

CALENDAR

Sunday August 24, 2008

1. END THE OCCUPATIONS RALLY & MARCH
This is a permitted rally and march organized by the Re-Create 68 coalition and other groups. Due to expected large number of participants, many Legal Observers are needed. Please check in at the office at approximately 9:00 a.m. to obtain materials and hats. Please return materials to the PLP immediately after the March. For details about speakers and plans, go to: www.recreate68.org.

Rally at 9:00 AM
March steps off from the Capitol steps at 10:30 AM. End at approximately 3pm. Location: West Steps of the Capitol Building

2. CODE PINK FREEZE TO STOP THE WAR
CHECK IN AT NOON AT PLP OFFICE. 16th Street Mall

3. FUNK THE WAR DANCE FOR PEACE
This action is comprised of four feeder marches which will converge on the 16th Street Mall. It is sponsored by Tent State University. For details, see: http://tentstate.org/funkthewar.htm The Funk marches shall depart the following locations around 1:00 PM. CHECK IN AT NOON AT PLP OFFICE

The marches will converge at Union Station at 2:00 PM.
– Union Station (17th & Wynkoop) Women’s Convergence led by Code Pink
– Skate Park (2205 19th Street, near Coors Field) Youth Convergence w/ Ralph Nader
– MEPS Center (19th & Stout) Iraq Vets Against the War and Allies
– Curtis Park (30th & Curtis in Five Points) Power to the People led by C. McKinney

3. UNCONVENTIONAL ACTION – RECLAIM THE STREETS
From 3:00 to 5:00 PM. FLOATER LEGAL OBSERVERS CHECK IN AT 2 PM AT PLP. Legal observers may be dispatched to locations downtown, particularly near delegates’ hotels, where coordinated direct action and protests may take place after the End the Occupations march, per Unconventional Action (U/A) (see: http://www.unconventionalaction.org/downloads/Disrupt_the_DNC.pdf)

4. TENT STATE UNIVERSITY MOVE TO FREEDOM CAGE
CHECK IN AT 10:30 PM

Monday August 25, 2008

1. PROTEST THE FREEDOM CAGE
March sponsored by Re-Create 68 to call attention to the undemocratic clamp down on free speech, in particular the abysmal cage erected near the Pepsi Center where non-delegates have been relegated to a fenced-in pen obstructed by the massive Media tent. This march will leave Skyline Park South (15th & Arapahoe) at 9:00 a.m and go to the Pepsi Center. CHECK IN AT 8 AM AT PLP OFFICE

2. FREEDOM MARCH TO SUPPORT POLITICAL PRISONERS
Rally and speakers begin at 10:00 AM. Location: Civic Center Park amphitheater. March will proceed from Civic Center Park to the Federal Courthouse (19th & Champa). CHECK IN AT 9 AM AT PLP OFFICE

3. SHAKE YOUR MONEY MAKER
Demonstrators will surround the Denver Mint at approximately 5:00 PM in an effort to draw attention to issues of wealth and poverty. CHECK IN AT 4:30 PM AT PLP OFFICE. The Denver Mint is located at 320 W. Colfax and Cherokee Street.

4. NO BUSINESS AS USUAL
Theatrics and street actions at various locales, such as fundraisers, in downtown Denver sponsored by Unconventional Action. Begins at 6:00 PM at Civic Center. FLOATER LO’S CHECK IN AT 5:00 PM

5. FESTIVAL OF DEMOCRACY MUSIC SHOWCASE
3pm to 9pm at Civic Center Park. We will be dispatching a few Legal Observers to this location during the concerts. Please notify Heather about your availability.

6. TENT STATE UNIVERSITY AT THE FREEDOM CAGE
CHECK IN AT 10:30 PM AT OFFICE

Tuesday August 26, 2008

1. PROCESSION FOR THE FUTURE Puppet March
Starts at Civic Center Park at 9:00 AM.
CHECK IN AT OFFICE AT 8:30 AM

2. CODE PINK
CHECK IN AT OFFICE AT 10:30 AM

3. CONFRONT THE SPECTACLE
Marches beginning at approximately 3 PM near or at the Pepsi Center. Sponsored by Unconventional Action. Technical blockades, street theater, and other diverse actions may attempt to block the flow of delegates fro their afternoon platform meetings to the convention hall.

Legal Observers CHECK IN AT 2 PM AT PLP

3. TENT STATE
CHECK IN AT 10:30 PM for move from Cuernavaca Park to Pepsi Ctr Freedom Cage

Wednesday August 27, 2008

1. ECO ACTIONS – ALL DAY
Direct action for the environment all day downtown. Polluters and greenwashers’ corporate headquarters downtown Denver. Check in at 10 AM and throughout the day at PLP offices

2. WOMEN IN BLACK
12-2 PM at Skyline Park. Check in at 11:30 AM at PLP Office.

3. IRAQ VETS AGAINST WAR MARCH 3-6 PM
** LEGAL OBSERVER CHECK IN AT FOURNEY’S TRANSPORTATION MUSEUM ON BRIGHTON BLVD AT 3 PM.

4. CRITICAL MASS BIKE RIDE – NO WAR, NO WARMING

6 PM. Check in at PLP at 5:00 PM for details on locations.

Thursday August 28, 2008

1. DNC MOBILIZATION FOR JUST AND HUMANE IMMIGRATION REFORM
Potentially massive, epic march for immigrant rights. For details, see: www.weareamericadnc.org
Legal Observers meet at PLP office at 8:00 a.m. March Step-off at 9:00 a.m. from Rude Park (2855 W. Howard Place). Rally to follow at La Alma / Lincoln Park (W. 12th Ave. and Mariposa St)

2. LOCKSTEP BEHIND THE PARTY
Action at the Pepsi Center at 11:00 AM. Further details on this action needed.

3. END WHITE SUPREMACY – Media Savvy Actions sponsored by Unconventional Action.
Times and locations to be determined.

5. MARCH TO INVESCO FIELD
March starts at Lincoln Park (Mariposa Street) at 2:00 PM and goes to Obama’s acceptance speech at Invesco Field.

Green Party-pooper insubordination more embarrassing than imaginable

And I thought I hade a vivid imagination. Green Party presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney has issued a press release detailing her explicit intention to participate in the Sunday DNC rally. The letter is very diplomatic but it spells out the ultimatum she was given by the Colorado Greens to desist. Cynthia McKinney for President Compelling reading. On a related note. Cindy Sheehan will also be joining the lineup. This represents a significant divergence from her close allies Medea Benjamin and UFPJ’s Leslie Cagan. It shouldn’t be that way.

If you’re not inclined to read McKinney’s letter, and I’ll add it’s as direct as her speeches, I can summarize the threats made and actions taken. Spoiler alert. For agreeing to speak at a rally organized by R-68: Resignation threatened. Fundraiser, place to stay, withdrawn. All scheduled engagements canceled. Assistance to get on Wyoming ballot, withdrawn. Every effort to remove her from Colorado ballot, threatened. McKinney was also informed she had been last choice candidate of Colorado delegation. So there.

Are we witnessing someone’s hissy-fit nervous self-immolation? Could be, but it packs the wallop of a suicide bomber. Local party gutted; bystanders, fellow Greens, burned; vital preparations annulled just months from the election. Third parties probably attract people who have difficulty with authority. In this case with irreparable consequence.

Cynthia McKinney & Rosa Clemente Announce Their Participation in Anti-war, Anti-human rights Abuse Events Before the DNC
August 14, 2008

As the United States activated Navy ships and the Air Force to begin an airlift of non-specified goods into the former Soviet state of Georgia, and military exercises began in the Persian Gulf near Iran, I received communications from certain individuals among the Colorado Greens who were organizing campaign support events there, suggesting that I not participate in an anti-war program being organized by other individuals in Colorado.

Perplexed, I began to do my research to understand the nature of the fissure that I seemed to be placing myself in the middle of. The communications to me about not participating in one of the scheduled events became more and more shrill. The events ran through August 26th. When the lineup of speakers, including Rosa and me, was announced for the events in question, I received multiple communications stating in various ways that the sender from the Green Party of Colorado, was on the verge of desperation over the matter. Within a few hours, I was reading messages stating that the Green Party of Colorado would be ruined if I participated in the End the Occupations/End the War march and rally slated to take place on the morning of August 24th on the steps of the Colorado State Capitol, or if Rosa participated in a Freedom March and Rally for Human Rights and Political Prisoners at Civic Center Park the following day.

An article appeared in a local Colorado newspaper stating that Rosa and I would not appear at the events for which we had been scheduled. Rosa responded to our Colorado Green Party contact that yes, indeed, we were appearing at the two events. Both Rosa and I then received messages demanding to know by a time certain what our plans were, and asserting that the Green Party of Colorado would be totally ruined if we associated with the group sponsoring the events. In addition, we were told that at least one resignation and sustaining membership would be tendered to the Party, and that Rosa and I could expect no support on the ground in Denver from the Green Party of Colorado, including a planned fundraiser and a place to stay.

Without receiving any additional response or information from either Rosa or I, the correspondent sent a message informing us that all Green Party of Colorado events previously scheduled for us had been canceled. Further, the message stated that ballot access petitioning by Green Party of Colorado would cease in neighboring Wyoming and that all efforts would be made to remove Rosa’s and my names from the ballot in Colorado. The message also noted that the Colorado delegation overwhelmingly supported Elaine Brown at the Green Party Convention.

With the e-mail messages flying “fast and furious,” I hope I have mentioned the highlights of this episode in somewhat chronological order. What Rosa and I would like to address now, is the ideological and rational order that produced this outcome. At the very first Green Party debate held in San Francisco earlier this year, I pleaded for unity of action and purpose as we face the challenges that confront us as a country. Rosa and I are proud to join with others who are sick and tired of war, occupation, human rights abuses, and the continued incarceration of our political prisoners. We are proud to join with others who are willing to do something about it. In the context of activities in Denver, that means cooperating with some organizations new to us and others with which Rosa and I have had a long-standing relationship. Let me explain some of those relationships.

I am proud to have received a Backbone Award from the Backbone Campaign, one of the co-participants of the anti-war, anti-occupation events in question, according to the organizers.

Rosa and I are pleased to have received the endorsement of M-1 of Dead Prez, who put out a video of endorsement and is rallying other conscious Hip Hop, Generation X voters to the Green Party with Rosa and I as its nominees. Rebel Diaz was on the stage with Rosa as she accepted her Green Party nomination for Vice President. Both Dead Prez and Rebel Diaz are participating in the events in question, according to the organizers.

Fred Hampton, Jr.’s mother, a victim of COINTELPRO, came to Georgia in the mid-1990s to help me gain reelection after a malicious redistricting case that went all the way up to the Supreme Court. Ward Churchill has traveled to my Congressional district to educate my former constituents on the COINTELPRO of yesterday and the COINTELPRO of today. Natsu Saito introduced me to other victims of COINTELPRO. I asked Kathleen Cleaver to co-author a report that was submitted to Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights at the time of the World Conference Against Racism, on the unsolved murders of Black Panther Party members who were victims of COINTELPRO. Fred Hampton, Jr., Ward Churchill, Natsu Saito, and Kathleen Cleaver are all participating in the events in question, according to the organizers.

As a Member of Congress, I supported the release of all political prisoners and welcomed information from the American Indian Movement about Leonard Peltier. I have at many times in my political career been allied with the ACLU, and have always supported Pam and Ramona Africa and the MOVE Organization. The American Indian Movement of Colorado, King Downing of the ACLU, and Pam and Ramona Africa of MOVE are all participating in the events in question, according to the organizers.

Mumia Abu Jamal has endorsed the Power to the People Campaign and my Green Party candidacy. According to the organizers, Mumia will transmit a message to all of us participating in the events in question.

Finally, I have appeared on various stages with many Palestinians; I have proudly spoken at rallies organized by Larry Holmes. Debra Sweet with World Can’t Wait was among the very first to my knowledge to organize around impeachment as an imperative and I support hers and all other impeachment groups in their efforts. And finally, I have known Ben Manski for a long time as a socially conscious activist who is also a member of the Green Party. According to the organizers, a Palestinian refugee is slated to speak at the events in question, as well as Larry Holmes, Debra Sweet, and Ben Manski.

Rosa and I have not been given any rational, ideological, or strategically-acceptable reason by the Green Party of Colorado to dissociate ourselves from the movement that this country so desperately needs and that these individuals and organizations participating represent, as we all attempt to hold the Democratic Party accountable for its complicity in all of the crimes of the Bush Administration. Therefore Rosa and I will keep our appointments in Denver and we hope that the members of the Green Party of Colorado will attend our sessions and listen to what we have to say. I have faith that by taking principled stands against war and occupation, human rights abuse, the prison-industrial complex, and in support of freedom for political prisoners, the Green party will emerge stronger.

Cynthia McKinney
Green Party Nominee for President of the United States

Rosa Clemente
Green Party Nominee for Vice President of the United States

R68 announces speakers to counter DNC

DENVER- The Recreate 68 Alliance has announced its lineup of speakers for the DNC rallies. Among them: Pamela Africa (MOVE), Kathleen Cleaver, Rosa Clemente, Ward Churchill, Jenny Esquiveo (spokesperson for Eric McDavid), Fred Hampton Jr., a recording from Mumia Abu Jamal, Cha Cha Jimenez, Ron Kovic, Cynthia McKinney, Ricardo Romero, Natsu Saito, and a spokesperson for the Cuban Five.

Sunday, August 24:
End the Occupations/End the War March & Rally 9am – 2pm
West Steps of the State Capitol Building to the Pepsi Center
This will be Denver’s largest anti-war, anti-illegal occupations march and rally.

Speakers (Alphabetical):
Ida Audeh – Palestinian Refugee
Kathleen Cleaver – Black Panthers
Ward Churchill – Long-time Author, Activist, and Scholar
Mark Cohen – Re-create 68 Alliance
Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. – Prisoners of Conscience Committee
Larry Hales – World Worker’s Party and Re-create 68 Alliance
Larry Holmes – Troops Out Now Coalition
Ron Kovic – anti-war activist, veteran and author of Born On The Fourth of July
Cynthia Mckinney – Green Party United States Presidential Candidate
Glenn Spagnuolo – Re-create 68 Alliance

Bands:
David Rovic – State Capitol Steps, kicking of the rally
M1 and Stic Man from Dead Prez – State Capitol Steps, prior to the march
Blue Scholars – Concert at State Capitol, after the march
Jim Page – State Capitol Steps, during the rally

Monday, August 25:
Freedom March and Rally for Human Rights and Political Prisoners,
10am – 2pm Civic Center Park to the Federal Court House

Speakers (Alphabetical):
Pamela Africa – MOVE Organization
American Indian Movement Spokes Person- Leonard Peltier Defense
Rosa Clemente – United States Vice Presidential Candidate for the Green Party
Kathleen Cleaver – The Panther Nine from San Francisco
King Downing – National Coordinator of the ACLU’s Campaign Against Racial Profiling
Jenny Esquiveo- Spokesperson for Eric McDavid (Political Prisoner)
Chairman Fred Hampton Jr. – Prisoners of Conscience Committee
Mumia Abu Jamal – Current Political Prisoner (Recorded from Death Row)
Cha Cha Jimenez- Founder of the Young Lords (Puerto Rican Resistance Prisoners)
Ricardo Romero – National Coordinator for the Mexican Liberation Organization
Natsu Saito – Author, Activist, and Human Rights Scholar (Guantanamo Inmates)
Spokesperson for the Cuban Five

Bands:
** Special Guest Band To Be Announced **

Monday, August 25:
Festival of Democracy, entertainment start time – 3pm
Civic Center Park (free concerts)

Bands:
Savage Family – From Illegally Occupied U.S.
Dinigunim – San Diego
DJ Cavem – Five Points, CO
Moetavation – Five Points, CO
DJ Asar Heru – Brooklyn
Karma – Barbados
Whiskey Blanket – Boulder
Midstate Music – Chicago
Dario Rosa – Boulder

Special Guest Speakers and Poets Between Acts

Tuesday, August 26:
Festival of Democracy, entertainment start time – 3pm
Civic Center Park (free concerts)

Bands:
Debajo Del Agua – Denver
DKO-Electric Horns – Denver
Melanie Susuras Band – Denver
Rebel Diaz – Bronx
The Night Kitchen – Boulder
From The Depths – North Carolina
Black Sheep Brigade – Boulder

Special Guest Speakers and Poets Between Acts

Poets for Monday and Tuesday:
Isis, Ladyspeech, Bianca, Lucifury, Allende, Bobby LeFebre (members from Nationally Ranked Slam Nuba Team 2008)

Additional Speakers Throughout the Week:
Deb Sweet – World Can’t Wait
Mason Tyert – SAFER
Timothy Tipton – Rocky Mountain Caregiver’s Cooperative
Ben Manski – Bring the Guard Home
CHOIR – ‘Acapella Choir with a conscience’ from Oakland/San Francisco
Ramona Africa – MOVE Organization

Tuesday, August 26:
Liberation Soirée at Dazzle, 930 Lincoln St. – 8pm Start Time
A benefit concert and party for the Festival of Democracy. A “No More Politics as Usual” Party.

Bands:
Rhythm Vision – Denver
Rebel Diaz – Bronx
DeeJay SD & K DJ Above

Tuesday, August 26:
Phoenician Kabob Restaurant on Colfax and Ivy, 7pm:

Larry Everest – Author of “Oil, Power and Empire”, speaking on “What’s Behind the US Threats on Iran, and How Can We Stop Them”

This is a list of bands and speakers. Protest activities will be going on every day, all week. For more information and scheduled activities go to www.recreate68.org.

Unconventional Denver DNC schedule

DNC Disruption 08From Disruption’08:
Denver is currently overflowing with plans from an extremely diverse array of groups for different types of demonstrations, music festivals, street parties and actions that will occur during the entire week of the convention. The many events are roughly broken down into theme days (see below). Anarchists and anticapitalists are working on many aspects of this mobilization but have a general focus of expanding acts of resistance outside permitted areas, radicalizing the debate around the Democrats, and ensuring that during the convention there will be no business as usual in Denver!

Schedule of actions:

SUNDAY the 24th
-10:30am, Civic Center Park: Massive march against militarization and occupations called for by Recreate 68. This will be a family-friendly, low-risk event.
-Midday: Funk the War! Following the march, a large, low-risk street party called for by the Alliance for Real Democracy will fill downtown with music and festivities against the war
-Late Afternoon: As the convention-goers check into hotels and attend their pre-convention party, our own raging party in resistance to the militarized occupation of Denver and the world will reclaim public space and spread the festivities onto the streets. Be ready to take the rowdy celebration to the doorsteps of delegate hotels etc.

MONDAY the 25th
-10:30am, Civic Center Park: March against the prison industrial complex and for freedom for all political prisoners.
-Evening: Meet at the Civic Center at 6pm to join the anticapitalist march (see below) or participate in organized and decentralized actions that will actively disrupt the capitalist corruption and cronyism of the two party system by targeting specific fundraisers, delegate parties and corporations backing the DNC. come ready for quick decentralized actions spanning the downtown area at a variety of risk levels.

TUESDAY the 26th
-Afternoon: Confront the Spectacle- We vote no! As delegates are arriving at the Pepsi Center, snake marches will converge on the entrances through the fence of the no-protest zone in order to create spaces for different levels of delegate movement disruption. Flying squads will assist the disruption and create distractions as we bring their party to a halt.

WEDNESDAY the 27th
-All day: Actions and alternatives- Real solutions to the climate crisis! A day of direct action against ecological destruction. We will create solutions to global warming without the politicians by shutting down sources of greenhouse gas emissions and corporations who destroy the earth (and fund the Democrats). we will also engage in creative resistance outlining solutions and alternatives; bike bloc! car free zones! guerrilla gardening!

THURSDAY the 28th
-10:30am, Rude Park: No Borders March! No one is illegal! Join this national mobilization for immigrants rights and help us draw connections between the struggles of immigrant communities and the struggle against global capitalism. This will be a low-risk event safe for all people regardless of immigration status. so play nice.
-Evening: A special Denver anarchist variety show party, put on by none other then Denver’s Louis Vitton.

ALSO:
A precarious workers council of UA has called for an anti-capitalist force to manifest at the DNC as a black bloc on the evening of Monday the 25th. This will meet at Civic Center Park at 6:00pm and will coincide with Unconventional Denver’s call for organized and decentralized no-business-as-usual actions during the same evening. More details TBA.

*this is by no means a complete list of all actions planned by the many groups involved in the Denver mobilization. Check dncdisruption08.org, recreate68.org, realdemocracy2008.org, and weareamericadnc.org for other events and actions.

RECREATE 68 -No more politics as usual

Recreate-68 logoFrom RECREATE 68:
End the Occupations March and Rally — West Steps of the Colorado State Capitol, August 24, 9am
END THE OCCUPATIONS
No more free pass for the Democrats. Join R68 and others as we march to end all illegal imperialist occupations in Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Puerto Rico, Haiti, Hawaii, North America, and others. The Dems have the power to put an end to the United States’ illegal colonizations and wars, but they will not without pressure from the people. Join us as we create that pressure.
NO MORE! NOT IN OUR NAME! BRING THE TROOPS HOME NOW!
The March will begin at the WEST STEPS OF THE CAPITOL and end on Speer Blvd in front of the Pepsi Center.

MORE OF R68’s SCHEDULE:
Freedom March — Civic Center Park, August 25, 10am

Join supporters of Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abu Jamal, The Cuban Five, and other political prisoners for the Freedom March and Rally! Leonard Peltier’s parole hearing will take place in 2008. Let us not forget that the Clintons left him in jail and did not pardon him. Free Mumia, the Cuban Five, the Guantanamo detainees, and others. The march will begin at Civic Center Park and end with a rally at the Federal Court House.

Shake Your Money Maker — Denver Mint, August 25, 5pm

It’s time to redistribute the wealth. Between security and corporate pay-offs, the DNC will cost over 100 million dollars for a party. We think the people deserve that money. Join us as we encircle the Denver MInt (where U.S. currency is produced) and use our collective power to raise the mint building in the air and shake the money out of it for the people. Don’t forget a sack to put all of your loot in.

Bring noise makers, energy, spells, magic, costumes, anything that gives you power. We’ll need it!

Days of Resistance — August 24-28

During the convention, there will be five major protests, one each day. Each protest will focus on a symptom of the disease of an imperialist, capitalist, racist system as seen in our communities. Some of the proposed themes are as follows:

Sunday – End All Occupations at Home and Abroad
Monday – Human Rights/Free All Political Prisoners
Tuesday – No Borders
Wednesday – No Warming
Thursday – No Racism/Imperialism

Festival of Democracy — Civic Center Park and Skyline Park, August 24-28

The Festival of Democracy will be a five day event running in conjunction with the DNC Convention. The Festival of Democracy will include free music and performing arts, free food, and free institution building and political training. The purpose will be to share some fun and to work towards the development of programs and networks that will address our community problems ourselves, without relying on the two party capitalist system. We will also be offering a 24 hour free medical clinic for all community members to receive free health care.

MONDAY, AUGUST 25 — Civic Center Park
TUESDAY, AUGUST 26 — Civic Center Park
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 27 — Skyline Park
THURSDAY, AUGUST 28 — Skyline Park

Viva Monserrat!

We need to give Monserrat political asylum now that she has been arrested in Chile! She is my favorite political prisoner in the world, in fact, and we need more women like her, those who would protest the prudishness of society rather than being the prudes. See Chilean subway stripper arrested The serious lack of a sense of humor and any sense of proportion around the world today is indicative of how authoritarian society everywhere actually is.

One might note, that the head of the Chilean government is herself a woman. We should all hold our breath though if she were in fact to speak out against the prosecution of Monserrat. These politicians always talk about freedom and liberty but in fact are the direct antithesis of freedom always.

Monserrat is in more danger in jail of being raped by those that claim to be upholding morality, the police, than she was on that subway where filmed. A good question was asked by spectators of the police as they hauled Monserrat away.

‘Que es el motivo?’ or translated simply to English… ‘Why?’ Yes, why indeed?

Not in My Name

Hello, I participated in the most incredibly diverse rally in front of the United Nations at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. Here are my remarks:

Cynthia McKinney Remarks Al Nakba Rally,
“Not in My Name”
United Nations, New York
May 16, 2008

On my birthday last year, I declared my independence from a national
leadership that, through its votes in support of the war machine, is
now complicit in war crimes, torture, crimes against humanity, and
crimes against the peace.

I declared my independence from every bomb dropped, every veteran
maimed, and every child killed.

I noted that the Democratic leadership in Congress had failed to
restore this country to Constitutional rule by repealing the Patriot
Acts, the Secret Evidence Act, and the Military Commissions Act.

That it had aided and abetted illegal spying against the American
people. And that it took impeachment off the table.

In addition, the Democratic Congressional leadership failed to
promote the economic integrity of this country by not repealing the
Bush tax cuts. They failed to institute a livable wage,
Medicare-for-all health care, and gave even more money to the
Pentagon as it misuses our hard-earned dollars.

We can add to that list, too, an abject failure to stand up for human
rights and dignity.

If the Democratic and Republican leadership won’t respect the right
of return for Hurricanes Katrina and Rita survivors, how can we
expect them to champion the right of return for Palestinians?

If this country’s leadership tolerates the wanton murder of unarmed
black and Latino men by law enforcement officials—extra-judicial
killings—how can we expect them to stop or even speak out against
targeted assassinations in the Middle East?

If the Democratic and Republican leadership accept ethnic cleansing
in this country by way of gentrification and predatory lending, why
should we expect them to put an end to it in Palestine?

If the leadership of this country impedes self-determination for
native peoples in this country, why should we expect them to support
indigenous rights for anyone abroad?

And sadly, the sensationalist corporate media would rather trick us
into thinking that reporting on a pastor, a former Vice Presidential
nominee, and a former cable TV magnate constitutes this country’s
much-needed discussion of its own apartheid past and present, so why
should we expect an honest discussion of apartheid and Zionism?

I hope by now it is clear. Our values will never be reflected in
public policy as long as our political parties and our country remain
hijacked.

Hijacked by false patriots who usurp the applause of the people and
all the while betray our values.

I’ve decided that neither the Democrats nor the Republicans will
operate any longer as business as usual—not in my name.

That Democrats and Republicans will use my tax dollars and betray my
values, not one day longer—not in my name.

That neither the Democrats nor the Republicans have earned my most
precious political asset—my vote.

And that now is the time to do some things I’ve never done before in
order to have some things I’ve never had before.

And so here today, I declare my independence from weapons transfers:
including Apache Helicopters; F’16s; sidewinder, hellfire, and
Stinger missiles.

I declare my independence from occupation, demolished homes,
political prisoners, and babies dying at checkpoints.

I declare my independence from UN vetoes, expropriated land, stolen
resources, and the installation of puppet regimes.

I declare my independence from all forms of dehumanization and am not
afraid to speak truth to power.

And I am happy to join with peace-loving people around the world who
know that there can be no peace without justice.

Let us never tire in our work for justice.

Thank you.

Libertad! Mexico wants freedom from US paid asesinos

Imagine if today the federal government had taken over the Colorado Springs Police Department, the Denver PD, and the Boulder PD? Imagine if that followed the federal government having taken over even more and bigger US cities’ PDs?

The US Drug War’s spillover into Mexico is just like that and yesterday the Mexican federal government took over the narco infiltrated police forces in Matamoros, Nuevo Laredo, and Reynosa. Just before, it was in Tijuana and some neighboring cities south of California that the police HQs got taken over by the army.

That does not mean that the Mexican military are the good guys Down South. They most certainly are not. They are the American government’s puppet henchmen directed by America’s puppet Mexican dictatorship. In all, they are a bunch of asesinos (assassins) and tortureros (torturers). The government there has a lot in common with Dick and Dubya’s.

The Mexican state of Oaxaca is where resistance to the US puppets remains strongest at this time despite last year’s repression. You can watch an 8 minute film of one of the latest marches for freedom there.
Youth March for the Liberation Of Political Prisoners

And how nice to see young people that are not passive and demobilized.
Libertad! Libertad!

US helicopter gunships threaten Pakistan mosque in siege

The embattled US military puppet regime of Musharraf is using US made helicopter gunships to threaten continued attack on an Islamabad mosque where young students are holed up inside. What an image for the entire Muslim world to see.

This dictator Musharraf is setting himself for an exit in the same style as the Shah of Iran. This US backed attack on this major Pakistani mosque comes along with the mass US murders of Afghanistan civilians, the Pentagon’s use of collective punishment across Iraq, attacks on Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, the pardoning of the criminal, Scooter Libby, and in the days to come, the crumbling of Pakistan’s dictatorship. What next for the Bush Administration? Probably a joint US-Israeli bombing of Iran in the days ahead.

And which countries are truly into Jihad? It appears that it is the Christian and Jewish ones. Payback for the Iranian hostage crisis, too, and for Iran’s government having successfully defended their country against the US backed Saddam Hussein. This is an unholy alliance that wants to run the affairs of the entire Muslim world, and most especially that portion of it stretching from Iraq to Iran to Pakistan.

And what was the supposed main crime of this mosque not reported in the AFP article? It was leading a campaign against the abuse and torture of Musharraf’s political prisoners. It was for their campaign against Musharraf’s prostitution of Pakistan to the Bush Administration. For that, the mosque had to be taken out. But the net result, is that the US and its puppet are destabilizing the entire country of Pakistan, and YES, the entire region, too. The Muslim countries will eventually unite against the Bush led thugs when pushed too far. They don’t like US government terrorism. And neither should the American population.

Oaxaca begins to rebound

The people of Oaxaca have begun to rebound from the wave of repression that Vicente Fox unleashed on them in his final days of office. Many were rounded up and sent off to far away prisons in other Mexican states to be tortured, beaten, and sexually assaulted, and the population as a whole cowered in fear of the same being dished out to them.

Meanwhile, Felipe Calderon began a media campaign to improve his already horrible presidential image. He mobilized the military to scurry around and pretend that it was waging in a gigantic campaign against Narco-lawlessness. Few have been impressed, though. He announced that he was beginning a jobs program. Few have been impressed though. He announced that he would try to stop the rise in price of Mexico’s staple, the corn tortilla. Few have been impressed though.

Meanwhile, the family of Brad Will have begun a campaign against Mexican government impunity and demanded that justice be done for Brad Will, who was the Indymedia American reporter shot down in cold blood during a protest in Oaxaca late last October. Justice for Brad Will!

Meanwhile, the family of the political prisoners held and abused by the Mexican police and army, began to protest on behalf of their family members. This was being met by repression itself, outside the jails.

Finally, after the weeks of repression, last weekend the people of Oaxaca once again demonstrated their opposition to the political repression that the government of Fecal (Felipe Calderon) was directing against their state. Ten thousand fearful marchers turned out into the streets once again. The crowd was overwhelming from the poorer strata of society, and one cannot see even a single kid in the crowd. It would have been too risky to bring them to the protest, with such a high level of repression coming from state authorities. .

Check out the film of this march. To finally win a struggle, one must not give up, and must protest, protest, protest. Certainly a lesson that we in the United States need to learn well. Victory never comes easily. Here is the Oaxaca march on video.

Alcatraz of the Rockies

Supermax fortress in Florence ColoradoWho’s being kept at SUPERMAX in Florence Colorado? Here’s a Frommer’s guide to the celebrity enemies of the state, actually an abridged list:

Ted Kaczynski -the Unabomber

Terry Nichols -1995 Oklahoma City bombing conspirator

Eric Rudolph -abortion-clinic bomber

Ramzi Ahmed Yousef -1993 bombing of the World Trade Center

Wadih El-Hage -1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa

Omar Abdel-Rahman -blind sheik convicted of plot to blow up New York City landmarks

Richard Reid -“shoe bomber”

Zacarias Moussaoui -9/11 conspirator

Antonio Guerrero -alleged spy, Cuban Five

Not on the list: Manuel Noriega, Kenneth Lay or OJ Simpson.

Milton Friedman, Champion of Liberty?

Today’s Gazette has their lead editorial starting out chirping away with “Milton Friedman- Champion of freedom passes away”. Oh come now, you guys! This economist was known more for being the economic theorist that inspired Chile’s Dictator Pinochet, and you lame brains heil him as being a champion of liberty? Oh well, this is typical of the nutty Right Wing Libertarian nitwits running that paper.

What Milton Friedman was noted for, was his desire to remove all government regulating of the multinational corporations that run the world, “arguing for freer markets” in the words of the Gazette editorial. Ironically, the Gazette has another story today that gruesomely shows the Milton Gazette mentality in its most extreme form. Page A3- China admits to using executed prisoners’ organs for transplants. In this story, we discover that American citizens have been travelling to China to buy and get these parts of butchered Chinese prisoners sewed inside of them. China certainly is a part of the rather unregulated world ‘free market’ in body parts that has become truly Friedmanesque in scope. And can we forget the Friedmanesque ‘free market’ of Argentina, where babies stolen from the wombs of political prisoners went to the high rollers of that country.

Milton Friedman, a real champion of freedom? Sure he is, Gazette. You guys are economic visionaries for sure. Is it any wonder that countries like Guatemala and Saudi Arabia have had major internal scandals around the issue of stolen body parts, where many in the population believe that Americans are stealing body parts from Guatemalan children, or stealing them from dead Iraqis murdered by the US army? That’s as wild a believing that Mickey Mantle is still alive, isn’t it? Remember his go to the head of the line liver transplant? But when a country’s leaders champion the likes of economic butcher Milton Friedman, then we can expect the rest of the world to be just a little leary of it. That’s Friedman’s real legacy. Neoliberlal ghoul.

What authoritarian rule looks like

Several recent events have lead me to some dots that need connecting. The dots may seem wildly disparate: the kidnapping of peace workers in Iraq and Palestine, the recent NYT revelations of counter-protest tactics employed be the NYPD, and a French film about heavy-handed manipulation of political prisoners.

Part One: Les Yeux des Oiseaux
I saw a movie two decades ago called EYES OF THE BIRDS. It depicted a prison in Uruguay for enemies of the state. They were making preparations for an inspection by the Red Cross. The story told of repercussions suffered by the political prisoners as a result of the long anticipated visit.

A couple of recent news items made me recall the film. In an early scene the prison warden ordered one of his men to do something irrational. Without provocation the warden ordered a guard to begin shooting at the prisoners who were assembled in the yard. At the same time, the warden filmed how the prisoners reacted.

That night the prison staff studied the footage to determine who among the political prisoners were the troublemakers. They weren’t looking at who was the more provoked, who was the quickest to run for cover, or even who was the most defiant. They weren’t looking for the strongmen or cellblock Kapos, they were looking for the leaders. They noted who shielded the others with their own bodies, who shepherded fellow prisoners to cover, and who sought to defuse the chaos by urging everyone to remain calm.

Those persons were then sequestered from the rest of the population, kept from contact with the Red Cross inspectors, and promptly dispatched with bags over their heads and buried. The film was fictional, but based on many corroborated accounts from Uruguay’s long years of repressive rule and disparados.

Part Two: NYC undercover cops
A recent New York Times article describes how NYPD officers infiltrated a number of peaceful street protests to incite the crowds to react. Tactics like this are nothing new for union-busters. The Pinkerton Security Agency for example got its start by hiring thugs to disrupt early efforts to organize strikes.

But do we expect such behavior from our men in blue? They’ve sworn to protect and serve us “with honor!” It used to be against the law for law enforcement to infiltrate political organizations.

Here’s what the NYPD was doing. Perhaps so as not to risk charges of false arrest, the police would plant, not drugs, but arrestees! The police would confront a crowd of protesters and arrest their own undercover officers. Immediately one of the arrestees would reveal himself as being under cover. This would divert suspicion from the ones still playing the victims and serve to incite the crowd to anger. They were angry for having been infiltrated, and then for seeing several among them arrested without apparent provocation.

With the crowd sufficiently distracted from its non-violent mantras, uniformed officers could move in from the sidelines and make their selective arrests.

Three fake protestorsFrom video taken by an IndyMedia reporter.
Number 36 cried out
“I’m under cover.”
The two behind him
pretended to be arrested,
only to be spotted later
at another protest site.
Real arrests followed.

Does this authoritarian maneuver resemble the M. O. used in Uruguay? To work, the perpetrators count on two things. First, that the heat of the moment will wrong-foot even the most defensive strategist. The tactic is after all nothing new.

That the targets feel the heat counts on a second, very cynical, assumption: that peace activists, like political dissidents, like freedom fighters, have a not easily repressed sense of humanity. They’ll betray their own goodness sooner than bear witness to injustice.

Probably you can see where I’m going with this.

Part Three: CPT Peace activists in the Middle East
When we hold vigils for the Christian Peacemaker Team members still held hostage in Iraq, we wonder how can those nasty insurgents threaten the lives of people who are so plainly on the side of the Iraqi people? It does seem particularly godless of those rebels doesn’t it? And absurd. I offer four thoughts.

A. Peace workers held in high regard
A friend of mine went to Iraq before the first Gulf War as a human shield to try to prevent the U.S. bombing campaign against Iraq. He wore a t-shirt which proclaimed his purpose there.

He told me that after a while, his journalist friends were begging to buy his t-shirt from him. So revered were the peace activists, they could walk into the worst areas in the middle of the night, and fear nothing. The few reporters and photographers who remained in Baghdad were so jealous of the access the peace workers had to ordinary Iraqis as a result of the deference shown to them.

B. Iraqi treatment of captured U. S. soldiers
Without exception, American soldiers captured by Iraqi forces have been returned to us safe and sound, neither hooded, tormented, tortured, nor humiliated. The extent of the “interrogation” of the captured supply line crew was to ask them to put truth to a lie: “had they been greeted with flowers and candy?”

Americans captured by IraqisFootage banned in the US: Iraqis ask them “were you greeted with flowers and candy?”

Not far from there, Iraqi doctors were already trying to return the captured Jessica Lynch to the American lines, but American soldiers kept shooting at their ambulance, forcing them to turn back. (Later American doctors would accuse the dumb-founded Iraqis of having raped Jessica’s limp body. In fact Lynch had earlier been forceably sodomized by a fellow U.S. soldier.)

Indeed Iraqis have shown a greater sense of compassion and humanity than our feeble representatives have ever shown them. From cluster bombs to DU to acceptable collateral damage to Free-Fire Zones to Kill Boxes to indiscriminate savagery to dehumanizing protocol. Americans have proven to be as barbaric as the Iraqis are cultured and forgiving.

What about the suicide bombers and the beheadings? The Iraqis are a divided people, and they have been driven to desperation. Execution by beheading, so horrifying to us, is more commonplace in their traditions. And then again, all may not be what it appears…

C. The mysterious beheading of Nick Berg
Nick Berg was a young do-gooder who traveled to Iraq on his own dime to try to take part in the reconstruction. He supported the war apparently, but it would be hard to paint him as an opportunist or profiteer. Nick Berg went to Iraq without a contract, nor much prospect for getting one. He went there to help.

The last people to see Nick Berg alive were CIA, a fact they denied at first. Nick was being detained by the U.S. military before his disappearance into the hands of his executioners. Though he was horribly decapitated on a video distributed all over the world, no reporter is quite ready to say who did it. Behind Nick Berg in the video, the figures under the robes did not look quite right.

The U.S. military immediately said the voice on the tape was that of AL-ZARQAWI. Robert Fisk, one of the most respected and senior reporters of Middle East affairs is not prepared to say that he even believes there exists such a person as Al-Zarqawi.

The timing of Nick Berg’s beheading was also very strange. World outrage was at an all time high from the photos just out of Abu Ghraib prison. Nick Berg’s gristly death seemed to provide a counterpoint to Lindy England’s sorry pose.

If I were suggesting that U. S. Forces were behind the Nick Berg execution, the case has been made by many already, I would be going off track. It certainly reflected poorly on the insurgents. But making the other side look bad is no clever trick. We trained Central Americans to do it all the time. Take off your uniform, dress up like rebels, and make it look like they massacred the village and not you.

When the Iraqi police in Basra apprehended two British black-ops this summer and then refused to release to them to British custody, the British forces immediately organized a prison break by driving a tank into the police station. They rescued the captured brits before they would be made to explain why they were dressed up like insurgents and what they were planning to do with a carload of live Improvised Explosive Devices!

It is suggested that those who killed Nick Berg took Abu Ghraib off the front page. I would suggest that the abduction of westerners serves a motive more closely related to the Uruguayan – NYPD gambit.

Why aren’t these hostages taken from the ranks of American soldiers? Some of the hostages have been contractors, and I’m sure many of their abductors have been criminals. Large ransoms are being paid for these hostages, it stands to reason that organized crime wants a piece of it. And whether these abductions are sanctioned or renegade, they achieve the same result, for whomever.

For the most part, the highest visibility hostages have always been people sympathetic to the cause of righteousness. It makes the insurgent/resistance fighters look bad, but more importantly I bet it makes them feel bad. Whichever it is, the Iraqi people probably scramble as desperately as we do to save the lives of the hostages.

D. British aid workers kidnapped in Gaza
Peace workers go to Palestine for one purpose, to save Palestinian lives. Palestinians are being shot left and right by Israeli soldiers, it is only when they are accompanied by western volunteers that the Israelis are deterred from shooting them and that Palestinians have a chance of being permitted through checkpoints so that they can reach medical care, or so that their children can reach school unmolested.

Activists Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall died putting themselves between Palestinian civilians and Israeli rifles. Activists brave tough Israeli travel restrictions to get into the occupied territories so that they can try to save innocent lives.

Certainly only the most heartless of Palestinians could be threatening the lives of these altruist activists. Maybe the Israeli military is counting on the fact that most Palestinians will not be heartless enough to sit idly by.

If there are Palestinians who believe the kidnap scenario, perhaps they are trying to contact resistance members whom they believe might have some influence. Perhaps resistance members themselves are hurriedly trying to ferret out possible miscreants in their ranks.

Regardless of who is in possession of the captives, the Israeli military is no doubt studying everyone’s movements very carefully. Normally a resistance network has to communicate between cells very sparingly. But with the clock ticking, with international pressure, and the life of a selfless non-combatant at stake, resistance fighters might eshew the risks of disclosing their activities in their effort to facilitate the search for an unjustly jeopardized fellow human being.

What does Palestine have to do with Iraq?
More on that another time. It is fashionable to argue that the liberation of Iraq was less about democracy and more about oil. What are you now paying for gas? This war is even less about oil than it is about global dominance. In the Middle East our colonial presence is called Zionism.

Could the Americans be orchestrating the kidnapping of sympathetic westerners in an Uruguayan style provocation of the Iraqi resistance? Have our other military actions been any less dastardly?

Let’s pause for a moment of silence for the hostages. May both sides unite to save the lives of the captive Christian Peacemaker Team, and of Kate Burton and her parents in Palestine. And please Lord, may too many Iraqis not jeopardize their own lives trying to help save a handful of ours.

Koran flushing

Sacreligious treatment of the Koran. Not THE Koran, nor A Koran, but someone’s OWN Koran. A bible-thumper might appreciate this distinction more than the average near-secular American.

Guantanamo interrogators weren’t flushing a Gideon Bible down the toilet, some vinyl-covered copy glimpsed only briefly in a hotel room drawer, nor even a Family Bible, a nicer copy kept on a lower shelf in the family den.

The Holy books destroyed at US facilities are PERSONAL COPIES, given to individuals at Confirmation or First Communion, carried around to daily or weekly meetings, with inscriptions from relatives and teachers and loved ones, with personal inscriptions, study points in the margins, journal entries, or family records.

These are what the US wardens were abusing before the tears of their owners. The political prisoners where often brought with not even the clothes on their backs, but they were allowed their Korans. Perhaps because our Afgan surrogates, the Moslems doing our bidding, would not conceive of depriving the captives of their Korans.

These are the Korans we are desecrating.

COINTELPRO report presented to UN

Report presented to the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in September 2001. Authored by Paul Wolf.

COINTELPRO: The Untold American Story

By Paul Wolf with contributions from Robert Boyle, Bob Brown, Tom Burghardt, Noam Chomsky, Ward Churchill, Kathleen Cleaver, Bruce Ellison, Cynthia McKinney, Nkechi Taifa, Laura Whitehorn, Nicholas Wilson, and Howard Zinn.

Presented to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson at the World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa by the members of the Congressional Black Caucus attending the conference: Donna Christianson, John Conyers, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Barbara Lee, Sheila Jackson Lee, Cynthia McKinney, and Diane Watson, September 1, 2001.

Table of Contents

Overview
Victimization
COINTELPRO Techniques
Murder and Assassination
Agents Provocateurs
The Ku Klux Klan
The Secret Army Organization
Snitch Jacketing
The Subversion of the Press
Political Prisoners
Leonard Peltier
Mumia Abu Jamal
Geronimo ji Jaga Pratt
Dhoruba Bin Wahad
Marshall Eddie Conway
Justice Hangs in the Balance
Appendix: The Legacy of COINTELPRO
CISPES
The Judi Bari Bombing
Bibliography

Overview

We’re here to talk about the FBI and U.S. democracy because here we have this peculiar situation that we live in a democratic country – everybody knows that, everybody says it, it’s repeated, it’s dinned into our ears a thousand times, you grow up, you pledge allegiance, you salute the flag, you hail democracy, you look at the totalitarian states, you read the history of tyrannies, and here is the beacon light of democracy. And, of course, there’s some truth to that. There are things you can do in the United States that you can’t do many other places without being put in jail.

But the United States is a very complex system. It’s very hard to describe because, yes, there are elements of democracy; there are things that you’re grateful for, that you’re not in front of the death squads in El Salvador. On the other hand, it’s not quite a democracy. And one of the things that makes it not quite a democracy is the existence of outfits like the FBI and the CIA. Democracy is based on openness, and the existence of a secret policy, secret lists of dissident citizens, violates the spirit of democracy.

Despite its carefully contrived image as the nation’s premier crime fighting agency, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has always functioned primarily as America’s political police. This role includes not only the collection of intelligence on the activities of political dissidents and groups, but often times, counterintelligence operations to thwart those activities. The techniques employed are easily recognized by anyone familiar with military psychological operations. The FBI, through the use of the criminal justice system, the postal system, the telephone system and the Internal Revenue Service, enjoys an operational capability surpassing even that of the CIA, which conducts covert actions in foreign countries without having access to those institutions.

Although covert operations have been employed throughout FBI history, the formal COunter INTELligence PROgrams (COINTELPRO’s) of the period 1956-1971 were the first to be both broadly targeted and centrally directed. According to FBI researcher Brian Glick, “FBI headquarters set policy, assessed progress, charted new directions, demanded increased production, and carefully monitored and controlled day-to-day operations. This arrangement required that national COINTELPRO supervisors and local FBI field offices communicate back and forth, at great length, concerning every operation. They did so quite freely, with little fear of public exposure. This generated a prolific trail of bureaucratic paper. The moment that paper trail began to surface, the FBI discontinued all of its formal domestic counterintelligence programs. It did not, however, cease its covert political activity against U.S. dissidents.” 1

Of roughly 20,000 people investigated by the FBI solely on the basis of their political views between 1956-1971, about 10 to 15% were the targets of active counterintelligence measures per se. Taking counterintelligence in its broadest sense, to include spreading false information, it’s estimated that about two-thirds were COINTELPRO targets. Most targets were never suspected of committing any crime.

The nineteen sixties were a period of social change and unrest. Color television brought home images of jungle combat in Vietnam and protesters and priests burning draft cards and American flags. In the spring and summer months of 1964, 1965, 1966, 1967 and 1968, massive black rebellions swept across almost every major US city in the Northeast, Midwest and California. 2 Presidents Johnson and Nixon, and many others feared violent revolution and denounced the protesters. President Kennedy had felt the opposite: “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.”

The counterculture of the sixties, and the FBI’s reaction to it, were in many ways a product of the 1950s, the so-called “Age of McCarthyism.” John Edgar Hoover, longtime Director of the FBI, was a prominent spokesman of the anti-communist paranoia of the era:

The forces which are most anxious to weaken our internal security are not always easy to identify. Communists have been trained in deceit and secretly work toward the day when they hope to replace our American way of life with a Communist dictatorship. They utilize cleverly camouflaged movements, such as peace groups and civil rights groups to achieve their sinister purposes. While they as individuals are difficult to identify, the Communist party line is clear. Its first concern is the advancement of Soviet Russia and the godless Communist cause. It is important to learn to know the enemies of the American way of life. 3

Throughout the 1960s, Hoover consistently applied this theory to a wide variety of groups, on occasion reprimanding agents unable to find “obvious” communist connections in civil rights and anti-war groups. 4 During the entire COINTELPRO period, no links to Soviet Russia were uncovered in any of the social movements disrupted by the FBI.

The commitment of the FBI to undermine and destroy popular movements departing from political orthodoxy has been extensive, and apparently proportional to the strength and promise of such movements, as one would expect in the case of the secret police organization of any state, though it is doubtful that there is anything comparable to this record among the Western industrial democracies.

In retrospect, the COINTEPRO’s of the 1960s were thoroughly successful in achieving their stated goals, “to expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit, or otherwise neutralize” the enemies of the State.

Victimization

The most serious of the FBI disruption programs were those directed against “Black Nationalists.” Agents were instructed to undertake actions to discredit these groups both within “the responsible Negro community” and to “Negro radicals,” also “to the white community, both the responsible community and to `liberals’ who have vestiges of sympathy for militant black nationalists simply because they are Negroes…”

A March 4th, 1968 memo from J Edgar Hoover to FBI field offices laid out the goals of the COINTELPRO – Black Nationalist Hate Groups program: “to prevent the coalition of militant black nationalist groups;” “to prevent the rise of a messiah who could unify and electrify the militant black nationalist movement;” “to prevent violence on the part of black nationalist groups;” “to prevent militant black nationalist groups and leaders from gaining respectability;” and “to prevent the long-range growth of militant black nationalist organizations, especially among youth.” Included in the program were a broad spectrum of civil rights and religious groups; targets included Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, Stokely Carmichael, Eldridge Cleaver, and Elijah Muhammad.

A top secret Special Report 5 for President Nixon, dated June 1970 gives some insight into the motivation for the actions undertaken by the government to destroy the Black Panther party. The report describes the party as “the most active and dangerous black extremist group in the United States.” Its “hard-core members” were estimated at about 800, but “a recent poll indicates that approximately 25 per cent of the black population has a great respect for the BPP, incuding 43 per cent of blacks under 21 years of age.” On the basis of such estimates of the potential of the party, counterintelligence operations were carried out to ensure that it did not succeed in organizing as a substantial social or political force.

Another memorandum explains the motivation for the FBI operations against student protesters: “the movement of rebellious youth known as the ‘New Left,’ involving and influencing a substantial number of college students, is having a serious impact on contemporary society with a potential for serious domestic strife.” The New Left has “revolutionary aims” and an “identification with Marxism-Leninism.” It has attempted “to infiltrate and radicalize labor,” and after failing “to subvert and control the mass media” has established “a large network of underground publications which serve the dual purpose of an internal communication network and an external propaganda organ.” Its leaders have “openly stated their sympathy with the international communist revolutionary movements in South Vietnam and Cuba; and have directed others into activities which support these movements.”

The effectiveness of the state disruption programs is not easy to evaluate. Black leaders estimate the significance of the programs as substantial. Dr. James Turner of Cornell University, former president of the African Heritage Studies Association, assessed these programs as having “serious long-term consequences for black Americans,” in that they “had created in blacks a sense of depression and hopelessness.” 6

He states that “the F.B.I. set out to break the momentum developed in black communities in the late fifties and early sixties”; “we needed to put together organizational mechanisms to deliver services,” but instead, “our ability to influence things that happen to us internally and externally was killed.” He concludes that “the lack of confidence and paranoia stimulated among black people by these actions” is just beginning to fade.

The American Indian Movement, arguably the most hopeful vehicle for indigenous pride and self-determination in the late 20th century, was also destroyed. As AIM leader Dennis Banks has observed:

“The FBI’s tactics eventually proved successful in a peculiar sort of way. It’s remarkable under the circumstances – and a real testament to the inner strength of the traditional Oglalas – that the feds were never really able to divide them from us, to have the traditionals denouncing us and working against us. But, in the end, the sort of pressure the FBI put on people on the reservation, particularly the old people, it just wore ’em down. A kind of fatigue set in. With the firefight at Oglala, and all the things that happened after that, it was easy to see we weren’t going to win by direct confrontation. So the traditionals asked us to disengage, to try and take some of the heaviest pressure off. And, out of respect, we had no choice but to honor those wishes. And that was the end of AIM, at least in the way it had been known up till then. The resistance is still there, of course, and the struggle goes on, but the movement itself kind of disappeared.” 7

The same can be said for socialist movements targeted by COINTELPRO. Alone among the parliamentary democracies, the United States has no mass-based socialist party, however mild and reformist, no socialist voice in the media, and virtually no departure from Keynesian economics in American universities and journals. The people of the United States have paid dearly for the enforcement of domestic privilege and the securing of imperial domains. The vast waste of social wealth, miserable urban ghettos, the threat and reality of unemployment, meaningless work in authoritarian institutions, standards of health and social welfare that should be intolerable in a society with such vast productive resources — all of this must be endured and even welcomed as the “price of freedom” if the existing order is to stand without challenge.

COINTELPRO Techniques

From its inception, the FBI has operated on the doctrine that the “preliminary stages of organization and preparation” must be frustrated, well before there is any clear and present danger of “revolutionary radicalism.”

At its most extreme dimension, political dissidents have been eliminated outright or sent to prison for the rest of their lives. There are quite a number of individuals who have been handled in that fashion.

Many more, however, were “neutralized” by intimidation, harassment, discrediting, snitch jacketing, a whole assortment of authoritarian and illegal tactics.

Neutralization, as explained on record by the FBI, doesn’t necessarily pertain to the apprehension of parties in the commission of a crime, the preparation of evidence against them, and securing of a judicial conviction, but rather to simply making them incapable of engaging in political activity by whatever means.

For those not assessed as being in themselves, necessarily a security risk, but engaged in what the Bureau views to be politically objectionable activity, those techniques might consist of disseminating derogatory information to the target’s family, friends and associates, visiting and questioning them, basically, making it clear that the FBI are paying attention to them, to try to intimidate them.

If the subject continues their activities, and particularly if they respond by escalating them, the FBI will escalate its tactics as well. Maybe they’ll be arrested and prosecuted for spurious reasons. Maybe there will be more vicious rumors circulated about them. False information may be planted in the press. The targets’ efforts to speak in public are frustrated, employers may be contacted to try to get them fired. Anonymous letters have been sent by the FBI to targets’ spouses, accusing them of infidelity. Others have contained death threats.

And if the subject persists then there will be a further escalation.

According to FBI memoranda of the 1960s, “Key black activists” were repeatedly arrested “on any excuse” until “they could no longer make bail.” The FBI made use of informants, often quite violent and emotionally disturbed individuals, to present false testimony to the courts, to frame COINTELPRO targets for crimes they knew they did not commit. In some cases the charges were quite serious, including murder.

Another option is “snitch jacketing” – making the target look like a police informant or a CIA agent. This serves the dual purposes of isolating and alienating important leaders, and increasing the general level of fear and factionalism in the group.

“Black bag jobs” are burglaries performed in order to obtain the written materials, mailing lists, position papers, and internal documents of an organization or an individual. At least 10,000 American homes have been subjected to illegal breaking and entering by the FBI, without judicial warrants.

Group membership lists are used to expand the operation. Anonymous mailings of newspaper and magazine articles may be mailed to group members and supporters to convince them of the error of their ways. Anonymous or spurious letters and cartoons are sent to promote factionalism and widen rifts in or between organizations.

According to the FBI’s own records, agents have been directed to use “established local news media contacts” and other “sources available to the Seat of Government” to “disrupt or neutralize” organizations and to “ridicule and discredit” them.

Many counterintelligence techniques involve the use of paid informants. Informants become agents provocateurs by raising controversial issues at meetings to take advantage of ideological divisions, by promoting emnity with other groups, or by inciting the group to violent acts, even to the point of providing them with weapons.

Over the years, FBI provocateurs have repeatedly urged and initiated violent acts, including forceful disruptions of meetings and demonstrations, attacks on police, bombings, and so on, following an old strategy of Tsarist police director TC Zubatov: “We shall provoke you to acts of terror and then crush you.”

A concise description of political warfare is given in a passage from a CIA paper entitled “Nerve War Against Individuals,” referring to the overthrowing of the government of Guatemala in 1954:

The strength of an enemy consists largely of the individuals who occupy key positions in the enemy organization, as leaders, speakers, writers, organizers, cabinet members, senior government officials, army commanders and staff officers, and so forth. Any effort to defeat the enemy must therefore concentrate to a great extent upon these key enemy individuals.

If such an effort is made by means short of physical violence, we call it “psychological warfare.” If it is focussed less upon convincing those individuals by logical reasoning, but primarily upon moving them in the desired direction by means of harassment, by frightening, confusing and misleading them, we speak of a “nerve war”. 8

The COINTELPROs clearly met the above definition of “nerve wars,” and, in the case of the American Indian Movement in Pine Ridge, South Dakota, the FBI conducted a full-fledged counterinsurgency war, complete with death squads, disappearances and assassinations, recalling Guatemala in more recent years.

The full story of COINTELPRO may never be told. The Bureau’s files were never seized by Congress or the courts or sent to the National Archives. Some have been destroyed. Many counterintelligence operations were never committed to writing as such, or involve open investigations, and ex-operatives are legally prohibited from talking about them. Most operations remain secret until long after the damage has been done.

Murder and Assassination

Among the most remarkable of the COINTELPRO revelations are those relating to the FBI’s attempts to incite gang warfare and murderous attacks on Black Panther leaders. For example, a COINTELPRO memo from FBI Headquarters mailed November 25, 1968, informs recipient offices that:

a serious struggle is taking place between the Black Panther Party (BPP) and the US [United Slaves] organization. The struggle has reached such proportions that it is taking on the aura of gang warfare with attendant threats of murder and reprisals.

In order to fully capitalize upon BPP and US differences as well as to exploit all avenues of creating further dissension in the ranks of the BPP, recipient offices are instructed to submit imaginative and hard-hitting counterintelligence measures aimed at crippling the BPP. 9

According to the national chairman of the US organization, who became a professor at San Diego State, the US and the Panthers had been negotiating to avoid bloodshed: “Then the F.B.I. stepped in and the shooting started.”

A series of cartoons were produced in an effort to incite violence between the Black Panther Party and the US; for example, one showing Panther leader David Hilliard hanging dead with a rope around his neck from a tree. The San Diego office reported to the director that:

in view of the recent killing of BPP member SYLVESTER BELL, a new cartoon is being considered in the hopes that it will assist in the continuance of the rift between BPP and US. This cartoon, or series of cartoons, will be similar in nature to those formerly approved by the Bureau and will be forwarded to the Bureau for evaluation and approval immediately upon their completion.

Under the heading “TANGIBLE RESULTS” the memo continues:

Shootings, beatings, and a high degree of unrest continues to prevail in the ghetto area of southeast San Diego. Although no specific counterintelligence action can be credited with contributing to this over-all situation, it is felt that a substantial amount of the unrest is directly attributable to this program.

Between 1968-1971, FBI-initiated terror and disruption resulted in the murder of Black Panthers Arthur Morris, Bobby Hutton, Steven Bartholomew, Robert Lawrence, Tommy Lewis, Welton Armstead, Frank Diggs, Alprentice Carter, John Huggins, Alex Rackley, John Savage, Sylvester Bell, Larry Roberson, Nathaniel Clark, Walter Touré Pope, Spurgeon Winters, Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, Sterling Jones, Eugene Anderson, Babatunde X Omarwali, Carl Hampton, Jonathan Jackson, Fred Bennett, Sandra Lane Pratt, Robert Webb, Samuel Napier, Harold Russell, and George Jackson.

One of the more dramatic incidents occurred on the night of December 4, 1969, when Panther leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark were shot to death by Chicago policemen in a predawn raid on their apartment. Hampton, one of the most promising leaders of the Black Panther party, was killed in bed, perhaps drugged. Depositions in a civil suit in Chicago revealed that the chief of Panther security and Hampton’s personal bodyguard, William O’Neal, was an FBI infiltrator. O’Neal gave his FBI contacting agent, Roy Mitchell, a detailed floor plan of the apartment, which Mitchell turned over to the state’s attorney’s office shortly before the attack, along with “information” — of dubious veracity — that there were two illegal shotguns in the apartment. For his services, O’Neal was paid over $10,000 from January 1969 through July 1970, according to Mitchell’s affidavit.

The availability of the floor plan presumably explains why “all the police gunfire went to the inside corners of the apartment, rather than toward the entrances,” and undermines still further the pretense that the barrage was caused by confusion in unfamiliar surroundings that led the police to believe, falsely, that they were being fired upon by the Panthers inside. 10

Agent Mitchell was named by the Chicago Tribune as head of the Chicago COINTELPRO directed against the Black Panthers and other black groups. Whether or not this is true, there is substantial evidence of direct FBI involvement in this Gestapo-style political assassination. O’Neal continued to report to Agent Mitchell after the raid, taking part in meetings with the Hampton family and their discussion with their lawyers.

There has as yet been no systematic investigation of the FBI campaign against the Black Panther Party in Chicago, as part of its nationwide program against the Panthers.

Malcolm X was supposedly murdered by former colleagues in the Nation of Islam (NOI) as a result of the faction-fighting which had led to his splitting away from that movement, and their “natural wrath” at his establishment of a separate mosque, the Muslim Mosque, Inc.

However, the NOl factionalism at issue didn’t just happen. It had been developed by deliberate Bureau actions, through infiltration and the “sparking of acrimonious debates within the organization,” rumor-mongering, and other tactics designed to foster internal disputes. 11 The Chicago Special Agent in Charge, Marlin Johnson, who also oversaw the assassinations of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark, makes it quite obvious that he views the murder of Malcolm X as something of a model for “successful” counterintelligence operations.

“Over the years considerable thought has been given, and action taken with Bureau approval, relating to methods through which the NOI could be discredited in the eyes of the general black populace or through which factionalism among the leadership could be created. Serious consideration has also been given towards developing ways and means of changing NOI philosophy to one whereby the members could be developed into useful citizens and the organization developed into one emphasizing religion – the brotherhood of mankind – and self improvement. Factional disputes have been developed – most notable being Malcolm X Little.” 12

In an internal FBI monograph dated September 1963 found that, given the scope of support it had attracted over the preceding five years, civil rights agitation represented a clear threat to “the established order” of the U.S., and that Martin Luther “King is growing in stature daily as the leader among leaders of the Negro movement … so goes Martin Luther King, and also so goes the Negro movement in the United States.” This accorded well with COINTELPRO specialist William C. Sullivan’s view, committed to writing shortly after King’s landmark “I Have a Dream” speech during the massive civil rights demonstration in Washington, D.C., on August 28 of the same year:

We must mark [King] now, if we have not before, as the most dangerous Negro in the future of this Nation from the standpoint of communism, the Negro, and national security … it may be unrealistic to limit [our actions against King] to legalistic proofs that would stand up in court or before Congressional Committees.

The stated objective of the SCLC, and the nature of its practical activities, was to organize for the securing of black voting rights across the rural South, with an eye toward the ultimate dismantlement of at least the most blatant aspects of the southern U.S. system of segregation. Even this seemingly innocuous agenda was, however, seen as a threat by the FBI. In mid-September of 1957, FBI supervisor J.G. Kelly forwarded a newspaper clipping describing the formation of the SCLC to the Bureau’s Atlanta field office – that city being the location of SCLC headquarters – informing local agents, for reasons which were never specified, the civil rights group was “a likely target for communist infiltration,” and that “in view of the stated purpose of the organization you should remain alert for public source information concerning it in connection with the racial situation.” 13

The Atlanta field office “looked into” the matter and ultimately opened a COMINFIL (communist-inflitrated group) investigation of the SCLC, apparently based on the fact that a single SWP member, Lonnie Cross, had offered his services as a clerk in the organization’s main office. 14 By the end of the first year of FBI scrutiny, in September of 1958, a personal file had been opened on King himself, ostensibly because he had been approached on the steps of a Harlem church in which he’d delivered a guest sermon by black CP member Benjamin J. Davis. 15 By October 1960, as the SCLC call for desegregation and black voting rights in the south gained increasing attention and support across the nation, the Bureau began actively infiltrating organizational meetings and conferences. 16

By July of 1961, FBI intelligence on the group was detailed enough to recount that, while an undergraduate at Atlanta’s Morehouse College in 1948, King had been affiliated with the Progressive Party, and that executive director Wyatt Tee Walker had once subscribed to a CP newspaper, The Worker. 17

Actual counterintelligence operations against King and the SCLC seem to have begun with a January 8, 1962 letter from Hoover to Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, contending that the civil rights leader enjoyed a “close relationship” with Stanley D. Levison, “a member of the Communist Party, USA,” and that Isadore Wofsy, “a high ranking communist leader,” had written a speech for King. 18

On the night of March 15-16,1962, FBI agents secretly broke into Levison’s New York office and planted a bug; a wiretap of his office phone followed on March 20. 19 Among the other things picked up by the surveillance was information that Jack ODell, who also had an alleged “record of ties to the Communist party,” had been recommended by both King and Levison to serve as an assistant to Wyatt Tee Walker. 20 Although none of these supposed communist affiliations were ever substantiated, it was on this basis that SCLC was targeted within the Bureau’s ongoing COINTELPRO-CP,USA, beginning with the planting of five disinformational “news stories” concerning the organization’s “communist connections” on October 24, 1962. 21 By this point, Martin Luther King’s name had been placed in Section A of the FBI Reserve Index, one step below those individuals registered in the Security Index and scheduled to be rounded up and “preventively detained” in the event of a declared national emergency; Attorney General Kennedy had also authorized round-the-clock surveillance of all SCLC offices, as well as King’s home. 22 Hence, by November 8,1963, comprehensive telephone taps had been installed at all organizational offices, and King’s residence. 23

By 1964, King was not only firmly established as a preeminent civil rights leader, but was beginning to show signs of pursuing a more fundamental structural agenda of social change. Meanwhile, the Bureau continued its efforts to discredit King, maintaining a drumbeat of mass media-distributed propaganda concerning his supposed “communist influences” and sexual proclivities, as well as triggering a spate of harassment by the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). 24 When it was announced on October 14 of that year that King would receive a Nobel Peace Prize as a reward for his work in behalf of the rights of American blacks, the Bureau – exhibiting a certain sense of desperation – dramatically escalated its efforts to neutralize him.

Two days after announcement of the impending award, COINTELPRO specialist William Sullivan caused a composite audio tape to be produced, supposedly consisting of “highlights” taken from the taps of King’s phones and bugs placed in his various hotel rooms over the preceding two years.

The result, prepared by FBI audio technician John Matter, purported to demonstrate the civil rights leader had engaged in a series of “orgiastic” trysts with prostitutes and, thus, “the depths of his sexual perversion and depravity.” The finished tape was packaged, along with an accompanying anonymous letter (prepared by Bureau Internal Security Supervisor Seymore F. Phillips on Sullivan’s instruction), informing King that the audio material would be released to the media unless he committed suicide prior to bestowal of the Nobel Prize.

King, look into your heart. You know you are a complete fraud and a great liability to all of us Negroes. White people in this country have enough frauds of their own but I am sure that they don’t have one at this time that is any where near your equal. You are no clergyman and you know it. I repeat you are a colossal fraud and an evil, vicious one at that. …

King, there is only one thing left for you to do. You know what it is. You have just 34 days in which to do (this exact number has been selected for a specific reason, it has definite practical significant. You are done. There is but one way out for you. You better take it before your filthy, abnormal fraudulent self is bared to the nation. [sic]. 25

Sullivan then instructed veteran COINTELPRO operative Lish Whitson to fly to Miami with the package; once there, Whitson was instructed to address the parcel and mail it to the intended victim. 26 When King failed to comply with Sullivan’s anonymous directive that he kill himself, FBI Associate Director Cartha D. “Deke” DeLoach attempted to follow through with the threat to make the contents of the doctored tape public:

The Bureau Crime Records Division, headed by DeLoach, initiated a major campaign to let newsmen know just what the Bureau [claimed to have] on King. DeLoach personally offered a copy of the King surveillance transcript to Newsweek Washington bureau chief Benjamin Bradlee. Bradlee refused it, and mentioned the approach to a Newsday colleague, Jay Iselin. 27

Bradlee’s disclosure of what the FBI was up to served to curtail the effectiveness of DeLoach’s operation, and Bureau propagandists consequently found relatively few takers on this particular story. More, in the face of a planned investigation of electronic surveillance by government agencies announced by Democratic Missouri Senator Edward V. Long, J. Edgar Hoover was forced to order the rapid dismantling of the electronic surveillance coverage of both King and the SCLC, drying up much of the source material upon which Sullivan and his COINTELPRO specialists depended for “authenticity.”

Still, the Bureau’s counterintelligence operations against King continued apace, right up to the moment of the target’s death by sniper fire on a Memphis hotel balcony on April 4, 1968. 28 By 1969, “[FBI] efforts to ‘expose’ Martin Luther King, Jr., had not slackened even though King had been dead for a year.” 29

Those seeking independence for Puerto Rico were similarly attacked. The Bureau considered independentista leader Juan Mari Bras’ near-fatal heart attack during April of 1964 to have been brought on, at least in part, by an anonymous counterintelligence letter:

[deleted] stated that MARI BRAS’ heart attack on April 21, 1964, was obviously brought on by strain and overwork and opinioned that the anonymous letter certainly did nothing to ease his tensions for he felt the effects of the letter deeply. The source pointed out that with MARI BRAS’ illness and effects of the letter on the MPIPR leaders, that the organization’s activities had come to a near halt.

[paragraph deleted]

It is clear from the above that our anonymous letter has seriously disrupted the MPIPR ranks and created a climate of distrust and dissension from which it will take them some time to recover. This particular technique has been outstandingly successful and we shall be on the lookout to further exploit the achievements in this field. The Bureau will be promptly advised of other positive results of this program that may come to our attention. 30

The pattern remained evident more than a decade later when, after reviewing portions of the 75 volumes of documents the FBI had compiled on him, Mari Bras testified before the United Nations Commission on Decolonization:

[The documents] reflect the general activity of the FBI toward the movement. But some of the memos are dated 1976 and 1977; long after COINTELPRO was [supposedly] ended as an FBI activity … At one point, there is a detailed description of the death of my son, in 1976, at the hands of a gun-toting assassin. The bottom of the memo is fully deleted, leaving one to wonder who the assassin was. The main point, however, is that the memo is almost joyful about the impact his death will have upon me in my Gubernatorial campaign, as head of our party, in 1976. 31

When Mari Bras suffered from an attack of severe depression the same year, the San Juan Special Agent in Charge noted in a memo to FBI headquarters that, “It would hardly be idle boasting to say that some of the Bureau’s activities have provoked the situation of Mari Bras.” Given the context established by the Bureau’s own statements vis a vis Mari Bras, it also seems quite likely that one of the means by which the FBI continued to “exploit its achievements” in “provoking the situation” of the independentista leader was to arrange for the firebombing of his home in 1978.

Lethal COINTELPRO operations against the independentistas continued well into the 1980s. As Alfredo Lopez recounted in 1988:

[O]ver the past fifteen years, 170 attacks – beatings, shootings, and bombings of independence organizations and activists – have been documented … there have been countless attacks and beatings of people at rallies and pickets, to say nothing of independentistas walking the streets. The 1975 bombing of a rally at Mayaguez that killed two restaurant workers was more dramatic, but like the other 170 attacks remains unsolved. Although many right-wing organizations claimed credit for these attacks, not one person has been arrested or brought to trial. 32

A clear instance of direct FBI involvement in anti-independentista violence is the “Cerro Maravilla Episode” of July 25,1978. On that date, two young activists, Arnaldo Dario Rosado and Carlos Soto Arrivi, accompanied a provocateur named Alejandro Gonzalez Malave, were lured into a trap and shot to death by police near the mountain village. Official reports claimed the pair had been on the way to blow up a television tower near Cerro Maravilla, and had fired first when officers attempted to arrest them. A taxi driver who was also on the scene, however, adamantly insisted that this was untrue, that neither independentista had offered resistance when captured, and that the police themselves had fired two volleys of shots in order to make it sound from a distance as if they’d been fired upon. “It was a planned murder,” the witness said, “and it was carried out like that.” What had actually happened became even more obvious when a police officer named Julio Cesar Andrades came forward and asserted that the assassination had been planned “from on high” and in collaboration with the Bureau. This led to confirmation of Gonzalez Molave’s role as an infiltrator reporting to both the local police and the FBI, a situation which prompted him to admit “having planned and urged the bombing” in order to set the two young victim up for execution. In the end, it was shown that:

Dario and Soto [had] surrendered. Police forced the men to their knees, handcuffed their arms behind their backs, and as the two independentistas pleaded for justice, the police tortured and murdered them. 33

None of the police and other officials involved were ever convicted of the murders and crimes directly involved in this affair. However, despite several years of systematic coverup by the FBI and U.S. Justice Department, working in direct collaboration with the guilty officers, ten of the latter were finally convicted on multiple counts of perjury and sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to 30 years apiece. Having evaded legal responsibility for his actions altogether, provocateur Gonzalez Molave was shot to death in front of his home on April 29,1986, by “party or parties unknown.” This was followed, on February 28,1987, by the government’s payment of $575,000 settlements to both victims’ families, a total of $1,150,000 in acknowledgment of the official misconduct attending their deaths and the subsequent investigation(s).

Despite tens of thousands of pages of documentary evidence, the idea that the Bureau would utilize private right-wing operatives and terrorists is a chilling, alien concept to most Americans. Nevertheless, the FBI has financed, organized, and supplied arms to right-wing groups that carried out fire-bombings, burglaries, and shootings. 34

This was the case during the FBI’s COINTELPRO in South Dakota in the 1970’s against the Oglala Sioux Nation and the American Indian Movement. Right-wing vigilantes were used to disrupt the American Indian Movement (AIM) and selectively terrorize and murder the Oglala Sioux people 35, in what could only be described as a counter-insurgency campaign. During the 36 months roughly beginning with the 1973 seige of Wounded Knee and continuing through the first of May 1976, more than sixty AIM members and supporters died violently on or in locations immediately adjacent to the Pine Ridge Reservation. A minimum of 342 others suffered violent physical assaults. As Roberto Maestas and Bruce Johansen have observed:

Using only these documented political deaths, the yearly murder rate on Pine Ridge Reservation between March 1, 1973, and March 1, 1976, was 170 per 100,000. By comparison, Detroit, the reputed “murder capital of the United States,” had a rate of 20.2 in 1974. … The political murder rate at Pine Ridge between March 1, 1973, and March 1, 1976, was almost equivalent to that in Chile during the three years after the military coup supported by the United States deposed and killed President Salvador Allende. 36

To commemorate the 1890 massacre of Wounded Knee, in which 300 Minnecojou Lakota were slaughtered by the U.S. Seventh Cavalry, hundreds of Native Americans from reservations across the West gathered in Wounded Knee, on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, during the winter of 1972-73. 37

This situation was already tense due to a series of unsolved murders on the reservation, and a struggle between the administration of the Oglala Sioux tribal president, Dick Wilson, and opposition organizations on the reservation, including AIM. Wilson had been bestowed with a $62,000 Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) grant for purposes of establishing a “tribal ranger group” – an entity which designated itself as “Guardians Of the OgIala Nation” (GOONs). Wilson’s “goon squads” patrolled the reservation, unleashing a reign of terror against Wilson’s enemies. When victims attempted to seek the protection of the BIA police, they quickly discovered that perhaps a third of its roster – including its head, Delmar Eastman (Crow), and his second-in-command, Duane Brewer (OgIala) – were doubling as GOON leaders or members. For their part, BIA officials – who had set the whole thing up – consistently turned aside requests for assistance from the traditionals as being “purely internal tribal matters,” beyond the scope of BIA authority.

On Feb 28th, 1973, residents of Wounded Knee, South Dakota found the roads to the hamlet blockaded by GOONs, later reinforced by marshals service Special Operations Group (SOG) teams and FBI personnel. By 10 p.m., Minneapolis SAC Joseph Trimbach had flown in to assume personal command of the GOONs and BIA police, while Wayne Colburn, director of the U.S. Marshals Service, had arrived to assume control over his now reinforced SOG unit. Colonel Volney Warner of the 82nd Airborne Division and 6th Army Colonel Jack Potter – operating directly under General Alexander Haig, military liaison in the Nixon White House – had also been dispatched from the Pentagon as “advisors” coordinating a flow of military personnel, weapons and equipment to those besieging Wounded Knee. As Rex Weyler has noted:

Documents later subpoenaed from the Pentagon revealed that Colonel Potter directed the employment of 17 APCs [armored personnel carriers], 130,000 rounds of M-16 ammunition, 41,000 rounds of M-40 high explosive, as well as helicopters, Phantom jets, and personnel. Military officers, supply sergeants, maintenance technicians, chemical officers, and medical teams remained on duty throughout the 71 day siege, all working in civilian clothes [to conceal their unconstitutional involvement in this “civil disorder”]. 38

On March 5, Dick Wilson – with federal officials present – held a press conference to declare “open season” on AIM members on Pine Ridge, declaring “AIM will die at Wounded Knee.” For their part, those inside the hamlet announced their intention to remain where they were until such time as Wilson was removed from office, the GOONs disbanded, and the massive federal presence withdrawn.

Beginning on March 13, federal forces directed fire from heavy .50 caliber machineguns into the AIM positions. The following month was characterized by alternating periods of negotiation, favored by the army and the marshals – which the FBI and GOONs did their best to subvert – and raging gun battles when the latter held sway. Several defenders were severely wounded in a firefight on March 17, and on March 23 some 20,000 more rounds were fired into Wounded Knee in a 24-hour period.

The FBI’s “turf battle” with the “soft” elements of the federal government rapidly came to a head. On April 23, Chief U.S. Marshal Colburn and federal negotiator Kent Frizzell were detained at a GOON roadblock and a gun pointed at Frizzell’s head. By his own account, Frizzell was saved only after Colburn leveled a weapon at the GOON and said, “Go ahead and shoot Frizzell, but when you do, you’re dead.” The pair were then released. Later the same day, a furious Colburn returned with several of his men, disarmed and arrested eleven GOONs, and dismantled the roadblock. However, “that same night… some of Wilson’s people put it up again. The FBI, still supporting the vigilantes, had [obtained the release of those arrested and] supplied them with automatic weapons.” The GOONs were being armed by the FBI with fully automatic M-16 assault rifles, apparently limitless quantifies of ammunition, and state-of-the-art radio communications gear. When Colburn again attempted to dismantle the roadblock:

FBI [operations consultant] Richard [G.] Held arrived by helicopter to inform the marshals that word had come from a high Washington source to let the roadblock stand … As a result the marshals were forced to allow several of Wilson’s people to be stationed at the roadblock and to participate in … patrols around the village. 39

On the evening of April 26, the marshals reported that they were taking automatic weapons fire from behind their position, undoubtedly from GOON patrols. The same “party or parties unknown” was also pumping bullets into the AIM/ION positions in front of the marshals, a matter which caused return fire from AIM. The marshals were thus caught in a crossfire. At dawn on the 27th, the marshals, unnerved at being fired on all night from both sides, fired tear gas cannisters from M-79 grenade launchers into the AIM/ION bunkers. They followed up with some 20,000 rounds of small arms ammunition. AIM member Buddy Lamont (Oglala), driven from a bunker by the gas, was hit by automatic weapons fire and bled to death before medics, pinned down by the barrage, could reach him.

When the siege finally ended through a negotiated settlement on May 7, 1973, the AIM casualty count stood at two dead and fourteen seriously wounded. An additional eight-to-twelve individuals had been “disappeared” by the GOONs. They were in all likelihood murdered and – like an untold number of black civil rights workers in the swamps of Mississippi and Louisiana – their bodies secretly buried somewhere in the remote vastness of the reservation.

Of the 60-plus murders occurring in an area in which the FBI held “preeminent jurisdiction,” not one was solved by the Bureau. In most instances, no active investigation was ever opened, despite eye-witnesses identifying members of the Wilson GOON squad as killers.

U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Gerald Heaney, after reviewing numerous court transcripts and FBI documents, concluded that the United States Government overreacted at Wounded Knee. Instead of carefully considering the legitimate grievances of Native Americans, the response was essentially a military one.

While Judge Heaney believed that the “Native Americans” had some culpability in the firefight that day, he concluded the United States must share the responsibility. It never has. The FBI has never been held accountable or even publicly investigated for what one Federal petit jury and Judge Heaney concluded was complicity in the creation of a climate of fear and terror on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

Other AIM casualties include Richard Oaks, leader of the 1970 occupation of Alcatraz Island by “Indians of All Tribes,” who was gunned down in California the following year. Larray Cacuse, a Navajo AIM leader, was shot to death in Arizona in 1972. In 1979, AIM leader John Trudell, preparing to make a speech in Washington, was told by FBI personnel that, if he gave the speech, there would be “consequences.” Trudell not only made his speech, calling for the U.S. to get out of North America and detailing the nature of federal repression in Indian country, he burned a U.S. flag as well. That night, his wife, mother-in-law, and three children were “mysteriously” burned to death at their home on the Duck Valley Reservation in Nevada.

Agents Provocateurs

Many details are now available concerning these extensive campaigns of terror and disruption, in part through right-wing paramilitary groups organized and financed by the national government, but primarily through the much more effective means of infiltration and provocation of existing groups. In particular, much of the violence that occurred on college campuses can be attributed to government provocateurs.

The Alabama branch of the ACLU argued in court that in May 1970 an FBI agent “committed arson and other violence that police used as a reason for declaring that university students were unlawfully assembled” — 150 students were arrested. The court ruled that the agent’s role was irrelevant unless the defense could establish that he was instructed to commit the violent acts, but this was impossible, according to defense counsel, since the FBI and police thwarted his efforts to locate the agent who had admitted the acts to him. 40

William Frapolly, who surfaced as a government informer in the Chicago Eight conspiracy trial, an active member of student and off-campus peace groups in Chicago, “during an antiwar rally at his college, … grabbed the microphone from the college president and wrestled him off the stage” and “worked out a scheme for wrecking the toilets in the college dorms…as an act of antiwar protest.” 41

One FBI provocateur resigned when he was asked to arrange the bombing of a bridge in such a way that the person who placed the booby-trapped bomb would be killed. This was in Seattle, where it was revealed that FBI infiltrators had been engaged in a campaign of arson, terrorism, and bombings of university and civic buildings, and where the FBI arranged a robbery, entrapping a young black man who was paid $75 for the job and killed in a police ambush. 42

In another case, an undercover operative who had formed and headed a pro-Communist Chinese organization “at the direction of the bureau” reports that at the Miami Republican convention he incited “people to turn over one of the buses and then told them that if they really wanted to blow the bus up, to stick a rag in the gas tank and light it.” They were unable to overturn the vehicle. 43

The Ku Klux Klan

During the 1960’s, the FBI’s role was not to protect civil rights workers, but rather, through the use of informants, the Bureau actively assisted the Ku Klux Klan in their campaign of racist murder and terror.

Church Committee hearings and internal FBI documents revealed that more than one quarter of all active Klan members during the period were FBI agents or informants. 44 However, Bureau intelligence “assets” were neither neutral observers nor objective investigators, but active participants in beatings, bombings and murders that claimed the lives of some 50 civil rights activists by 1964. 44

Bureau spies were elected to top leadership posts in at least half of all Klan units. 45 Needless to say, the informants gained positions of organizational trust on the basis of promoting the Klan’s fascist agenda. Incitement to violence and participation in terrorist acts would only confirm the infiltrator’s loyalty and commitment.

Unlike slick Hollywood popularizations of the period, such as Alan Parker’s film, “Mississippi Burning,” the FBI was instrumental in building the Ku Klux Klan in the South,

“…setting up dozens of Klaverns, sometimes being leaders and public spokespersons. Gary Rowe, an FBI informant, was involved in the Klan killing of Viola Liuzzo, a civil rights worker. He claimed that he had to fire shots at her rather than ‘blow his cover.’ One FBI agent, speaking at a rally organized by the Klavern he led, proclaimed to his followers, ‘We will restore white rights if we have to kill every negro to do it.'” 46

Throughout its history, the Klan has had a contradictory relationship with the national government: as a defender of white privilege and the patriarchal status quo, and as an implicit threat, however provisional, to federal power. Depending on political conditions in society as a whole, vigilante terror can be supplemental to official violence, or kept on the proverbial shortleash. 47 As a surrogate army in the field of terror against official enemies, the Klan enjoys wide latitude. But when it moves into an oppositional mode and attacks key institutions of national power, Klan paramilitarism – but not its overt white supremacist ideology – is treated as an imminent threat to the social order, suppressed, but never destroyed, unlike other COINTELPRO target groups.

These roles are not mutually exclusive. As anti-racist researcher Michael Novick warns: “The KKK and its successor and fraternal organizations are deeply rooted in the actual white supremacist power relations of US society. They exist as a supplement to the armed power of the state, available to be used when the rulers and the state find it necessary.” 48

The Klan’s “supplemental” role, particularly as a private armed force sporadically deployed to arrest the development of movements for Black freedom, is best considered by comparison to other Bureau operations. Unlike other COINTELPROs, the “Klan – White Hate Groups” program was of a different order entirely. Senior FBI management and a majority of agents in the field endorsed the Klan’s values, if not the vigilante character of their tactics; from militaristic anti-communism to extreme racial hatred; from ultra-nationalism to misogynist puritanism. 49

This was evident during the civil rights struggles of the sixties, when Freedom Riders and local community activists directly confronted hostile police forces – many of whom were openly allied with the Klan. Despite clear jurisdictional authority to enforce federal law, the FBI consistently refused to protect civil rights workers under attack across the South. More than once, the Bureau refused to warn those under imminent threat of violence.

FBI inaction in the area of civil rights enforcement wasn’t simply a matter of what the Pike Committee of the House of Representatives dubbed “FBI racism.” Rather, FBI bureaucratic lethargy, when it came to protecting Black lives, underscored its mission against subversion for constituents whose privileges and power were threatened by a militant movement for Black rights. 50

Strikingly different from anti-communist COINTELPROs that enmeshed broad social sectors in a web of entanglements, FBI monitoring of the Klan was strictly confined to the organization itself. No serious efforts were made to explore the supplemental role of White Citizens’ Councils, many of which were active Klan fronts, let alone investigate the obvious and widespread police complicity in racist violence. 51 Bureau surveillance of the Klan was purely passive, hardly the directed aggression reserved for left-wing targets.

In May, 1961, as civil rights activists turned up the heat, the FBI passed information to the Klan about Freedom Rider buses on their way to Birmingham, Alabama. A police sergeant, Thomas Cook, attached to the Birmingham police intelligence branch was plied with reports by Bureau informants. A Klan member himself, Cook furnished this information to Robert Shelton’s Alabama Knights and arranged several meetings to discuss “matters of interest.” Cook supplied Klan leaders with the names of “inter-racial organizations,” the location of meetings, and the membership lists of civil rights groups for circulation in Klan publications. FBI informant Gary Thomas Rowe wrote a confidential memo to the Birmingham Special Agent in Charge (SAC) stating that Cook had handed over inter-office intelligence memos on civil rights activists during a Klan meeting. Rowe insisted that Cook not only gave him relevant information that police had in their files, but urged Rowe to “help himself to any material he thought he would need for the Klan.” 52

According to documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Birmingham SAC called Cook and informed him of the progress that Freedom Rider buses had made and when they were scheduled to arrive in the city. According to Rowe, Cook and Birmingham’s public safety director, arch-segregationist Eugene “Bull” Connor conspired with Klan leaders and directly organized physical attacks on Freedom Riders when the buses reached their destination. According to one FBI memo, Connor declared: “By God, if you are going to do this thing, do it right.” 53

In consultation with Shelton’s group, Birmingham police agreed not to show up for 15 or 20 minutes after the buses pulled in, to give Klansmen sufficient time to carry out their attack. Assailants were promised lenient treatment if through some fluke, they managed to get arrested. During a planning meeting that finalized logistical details, Grand Titan Hubert Page advised Klansmen that Imperial Wizard Shelton had spoken with Detective Cook, and was informed that Freedom Rider buses were scheduled to arrive at 11:00 am.

Earlier that day, the KKK intercepted another bus on its way to Birmingham, beating the passengers and setting the vehicle ablaze. As agreed during consultations with Klan leadership, when the buses arrived no police were present at either of Birmingham’s bus terminals, but 60 Klansmen – including Rowe – were waiting. Klansmen attacked civil rights workers, reporters and photographers, viciously beating anyone within reach with chains, pipes and baseball bats.

According to ACLU attorney Howard Simon, “We found that the FBI knew that the Birmingham Police Department was infiltrated by the Klan, that many members of the police department were Klan members, that they knew a person in intelligence was passing information directly to leaders of the Klan, and they also knew their undercover agent had worked out an agreement with the police department to stay away from the terminals. They knew all that and still continued their relationship with the police department.” 54

Though the Bureau claimed that its “Klan – White Hate Groups” COINTELPRO was launched in order to stifle white supremacist activities, the historical record proves otherwise. The more well known, but by no means only examples of Klan terror during the period – the 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church that killed four black children; the 1964 murders of civil rights workers Goodman, Chaney and Schwerner in Mississippi: and the 1965 assassination of Viola Liuzzo and her companion near Selma, Alabama, point to knowledge of the crimes, and complicity in subsequent cover-ups by FBI officials.

Bureau informant Gary Thomas Rowe was a central figure in some of the most publicized crimes of the period, indulging in freelance acts of racist terror. He was suspected of involvement in firebombing the home of a wealthy Black Birmingham resident, the detonation of shrapnel bombs in Black neighborhoods and the murder of a Black man during a 1963 demonstration. He became a prime suspect in the Birmingham church bombing after he failed two polygraph tests. His answers were described by investigators as “deceptive” when he denied having been with the Klan group that planted the bomb. 55

Despite enough evidence to open a preliminary investigation, the FBI refused, covering-up for Rowe even when another informant, John Wesley Hall, named him as a member of a three-man Klan security committee holding veto power over all proposed acts of violence. Years later, an independent inquiry uncovered evidence that Hall became a Bureau informant two months after the bombing and despite the fact that a polygraph test convinced the Alabama FBI that he was probably involved in the attack himself, Hall admitted to having moved dynamite for the plot’s ringleader, Robert E. Chambliss, a Klan member since 1924. Even though court testimony and a wealth of evidence linked Hall, Rowe and other members of the Alabama Knight’s to the bombing, the suspects were convicted on a misdemeanor charge – “possession of an explosive without a permit.” It took more than a decade and three bungled investigations to finally convict Chambliss of the crime. 56

In July 1997, almost 35 years after the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing, the FBI re-opened its investigation based on “new information.” However, mainstream news accounts failed to report the pivotal role played by Bureau informants. The Rev. Fred Shuttlesworth, a target of a 1963 Klan assassination plot, believes he knows why only one man was convicted for the bombing. “It is well known,” the 75-year old civil rights leader said, “there was collusion all along between the FBI, local law enforcement and the Klan.” Rev. Shuttlesworth should know: Bureau informant John Wesley Hall was the man who proposed killing the minister. 57

New light was shed on Rowe’s privileged position as an FBI provocateur tasked to “disrupt and neutralize” the civil rights struggle. During a subsequent investigation into the murder of Viola Liuzzo, evidence surfaced that it was Rowe who actually fired the fatal shots that took her life. But instead of prosecuting Rowe, the Bureau placed him in a federal witness protection program. 58

In 1978, Rowe was indicted by an Alabama grand jury as Liuzzo’s killer. But complicity in shielding Rowe and the Bureau from exposure came to light when the contents of a J. Edgar Hoover memo to President Lyndon Johnson became public. Hours after the killings Hoover wrote: “A Negro man was with Mrs. Liuzzo and reportedly was sitting close to her.” In a subsequent memo to aides, Hoover said he informed the President that “she was sitting very, very close to the Negro in the car, that it had the appearance of a necking party.” 59 While providing a glimpse into the pathological nature of Hoover’s racism and misogyny, the Director fails to enlighten us as to the mechanics of a “necking party” during a 100 mph car chase in the dead of night, a “party” by terrorized individuals fleeing armed Klan thugs intent on killing them in cold blood. However twisted, Hoover’s slander was calculated to establish a motive; one that would “justify” Mrs. Liuzzo’s murder on grounds of breaking one of nativism’s primal laws: the prohibition against sex between the races.

On November 3, 1979, a posse organized by Klansmen and neo-Nazis murdered five members of the Communist Workers Party (CWP) in broad daylight. The CWP had organized a “Smash the Klan” demonstration in Greensboro, North Carolina among the city’s mostly black and working class mill workers. CWP members included union organizers and activists who had upset “the fundamental order of things.” 60

An essential component for the operation, organized by night-riding Klansmen, was U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) agent, Bernard Butkovich. The BATF agent, a Vietnam veteran and demolitions expert undercover in the local branch of the American Nazi Party, helped the Klan obtain automatic weapons, and also in making their escape. 61

The posse had been organized and led by an FBI infiltrator, Edward Dawson. Dawson was also a paid informant for the Greensboro Police Department. 62 Dawson reported to his handlers that eighty-five Klansmen meeting in nearby Lincolnton had expressed their intent to counter-demonstrate on November 3. 63

The night-riders had stated they intended to arm themselves for their counter-demonstration and that Klan leader, Grand Dragon Virgil Griffin, was actively calling out Klansmen from other states to participate. It was also rumored that neo-Nazis from the Winston-Salem area had obtained a machine gun and other weapons. Dawson reported to Greensboro detective Jerry Cooper that Klansmen and neo-Nazis were assembling at the home of a local Klan member and that they were armed. 64

The police/FBI informant had received a copy of the parade route the day before the CWP-initiated march; a map had been supplied by Detective Cooper. Dawson had driven over the parade route three hours earlier with a contingent of out-of-town Klansmen. Dawson also alerted Cooper that the Klansmen and neo- Nazis possessed three handguns and nine long-barrelled rifles, including automatic weapons supplied by BATF agent Bernard Butkovich. 65

Prior to the beginning of the CWP’s march and demonstration, Cooper and other police officials drove by the house where the Klansmen and neo-Nazis were assembling. They jotted down license plate numbers and then declared a lunch break — at approximately 10 a.m. 66 Less than an hour later, Cooper, trailing behind the Klan caravan reported, “shots fired” and then “heavy gunfire.” The tactical squad assigned to monitor the march were still out to lunch. 67

Two other officers, responding to a domestic disturbance call, noted the absence of patrol cars usually assigned to the area. They arrived at the Morningside projects, the site of the CWP march. Officer Wise later reported having received a most unusual call from the police communications center. The officers were asked how long they anticipated being at their call; they were subsequently advised to “clear the area as soon as possible.” 68

Moments later, five demonstrators lay dead, murdered in broad daylight by members of the Ku Klux Klan and the American Nazi Party. 69 According to Michael Novick, the Greensboro massacre “set the tone for neo-Nazi organizing by the KKK and other white supremacists in the ensuing decade.” 70

A subsequent civil suit brought against the neo-Nazis, the Klan and the Greensboro police resulted in a partial award to the surviving family members. FBI and BATF agents walked away scott-free.

The Secret Army Organization

Convinced that the United States was under threat of an imminent communist takeover, Robert DePugh, a disenchanted member of the John Birch Society, founded the Minutemen in the early sixties. Forged as a “last line of defense against communism,” DePugh’s secret warriors were dedicated to building an underground army to fight against “the enemy within.” 71

However absurd this paranoia may appear on the surface, it had serious and deadly consequences for anyone caught in the cross-hairs. Before their undoing in 1969, the result not of a sinister plot by “communist infiltrators in the government,” but because DePugh and others were prepared to rob banks to finance the organization, the Minutemen had built a formidable national network, with thousands of members stockpiling secret arsenals with more than enough firepower to match their feverish rhetoric. In 1966, 19 New York Minutemen were arrested and accused of plotting to bomb three summer camps allegedly used by “Communist, left wing and liberal” groups “for indoctrination purposes.” Subsequent raids uncovered a huge arms cache that included military assault rifles, bombs, mortars, machine guns, grenade launchers and a bazooka.

In February 1970, six Minutemen from four states led by Jerry Lynn Davis held a clandestine summit in northern Arizona. Surveying the ruins, they were convinced that “communist elements” in the Justice Department had destroyed the group. Undeterred by recent events, they formed the nucleus of the Secret Army Organization (SAO).

As conceived by Davis and the others, the SAO would be armed but low-key: a propaganda group with a potential for waging guerrilla war against leftists, should the need arise. Emphasizing regional autonomy and a decentralized structure, they believed they had inoculated themselves against unwanted attention from “communist-controlled” government agencies. Shortly after the meeting, chapters were established in San Diego, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Seattle with promising contacts made in Portland, El Paso, Los Angeles and Oklahoma. 72

A review of events in San Diego, submitted to the Church Committee in June 1975 and based on “pubic admissions of the officers and agents involved, including sworn testimony at various criminal trials and statements given to news reporters and investigators,” 73 describes how the FBI played a central role in the creation of the Secret Army Organization, placing informant Howard Berry Godfrey in a leadership position.

Godfrey, a San Diego fireman, devout Mormon, and self-styled commando, was an FBI informant for more than five years. According to ex-members, it was Godfrey who was the real force behind the SAO. While employed by the FBI, Godfrey selected the organization’s name and defrayed its start-up costs, including expenditures for printing and mailing literature. By September 1971, there were four active cells in San Diego. Little did they know they were under the direction of the FBI, the State’s ultimate “secret army organization.”

San Diego was the center of a thriving activist community committed to a multitude of projects anathema to the nativist right. With 200,000 active-duty soldiers stationed at nearby bases, the Movement for a Democratic Military (MDM) was the outgrowth of antiwar efforts to influence soldiers bound for Vietnam. MDM organizing had made small, but promising chinks in the military’s armor. Campus organizing by the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), and the emergence of militant Chicano organizations in the area were viewed as serious threats to the successful prosecution of the war. A thriving underground press, in the form of the San Diego Street Journal, was in stark contrast to the conservative and establishment-oriented media. But when the Journal ran a series of exposes on the shady financial empire of Nixon crony, C. Arnholt Smith, the response from the right was swift. It would soon turn violent. 74

Between November 1969 and January 1970, remnants of the Minutemen launched attacks against the Journal. Bullets were fired into the office, paint splashed over furniture, equipment smashed, records and subscription lists stolen, staff cars firebombed, Journal vending machines vandalized. When the newspaper attempted to relocate to new offices, their prospective landlord was arrested by the San Diego police on a fabricated murder charge. Released after an hour, he told the Journal they’d have to look elsewhere. As the SAO gradually came online as a Bureau surrogate, attacks against the newspaper and its staff intensified. 75

Another SAO target was Dr. Peter Bohmer, a radical economics professor at San Diego State University who was popular with students and an articulate spokesperson against the war. Harassed by conservative university bureaucrats who objected to his antiwar activism, Bohmer was fired after a protracted struggle. Predictably, his much-publicized battle with the university drew SAO scrutiny. Beginning in 1971, a vicious campaign was launched against the professor. In April, tear gas crystals were dumped in a car parked in front of his home. On May 4, a muffled voice warned over the phone “the cross hairs are on you.”

In the summer of 1971, San Diego was chosen as the site for the 1972 Republican convention. Harassment against Bohmer increased, punctuated by assaults targeting the antiwar and Chicano movements. 76 Among these acts were destruction of newspaper offices and book stores, firebombing of cars, and the distribution of leaflets giving the address of the collective where anti-war activist Peter Bohmer lived “for any of our readers who may care to look up this Red Scum, and say hello.”

On January 6, 1972 the SAO dramatically upped the ante. Earlier that day SAO cross-hair stickers were plastered on the door of Bohmer’s office; that evening a caller threatened, “This time we left a sticker, next time we may leave a grenade. This is the SAO!”

A few hours later, in a car parked outside Bohmer’s home, SAO soldier George Mitchell Hoover fiddled with a gun. Sitting next to him was Godfrey, the FBI’s informant. Aiming a 9mm Polish Radom pistol, Hoover fired two shots into the house; he would have fired a third but the weapon jammed. The first bullet struck San Diego Street Journal reporter Paula Tharp, shattering her elbow. The second shot narrowly missed Shari Whitehead and lodged in a window frame above her head. Two shell-casings matching the slug removed from Tharp’s arm were retrieved from the street.

The next day Godfrey turned over the gun to his FBI control agent, Steve Christiansen, a devout Mormon and dedicated anti-communist himself. The Special Agent hid the weapon under his couch for more than six months while the San Diego police conducted a half-hearted investigation. Though guilty of covering-up a criminal act, Christiansen insisted that Bureau superiors knew he was hiding the gun and fully approved of his actions to protect “confidential sources.” 77

Although the Tharp shooting generated considerable publicity, and even some pressure to make arrests, the San Diego police responded with the absurd story that Bohmer carried out the attack himself in an effort “to attract sympathy for his cause.” 78

Relentless harassment continued throughout the spring of 1972; more firebombings, threatening phone calls, more cross-hair stickers, just another day at the office for right-wing counterguerrillas. But then the group made a fatal mistake, one that would cost them dearly.

On June 19, 1972, William Yakopec entered the Guild Theater, a local porno house; concealed under his jacket was a bomb. After he pried a cover loose from a vent at the rear of the building, he hurriedly left the premises. Moments later a powerful explosion ripped through the theater, destroying the screen, blowing debris 60 feet into the air and showering the terrified audience with concrete shards and two-by-fours. Unfortunately for Yakopec and the SAO, a deputy district attorney and a San Diego cop were in the audience, conducting an “investigation” to determine whether I am Curious (Yellow) met pertinent criteria to be banned as pornography. 79

Though city fathers had no problem when right-wing militias directed their wrath at suitable targets, taking out a cop and a district attorney was too much even in San Diego. Rubien D. Brandon, the officer who narrowly escaped being blown to kingdom come, angrily phoned the FBI and demanded the name of their informer. A week later, seven members of the SAO were behind bars. Yakopec was charged with the Guild Theater bombing, George Hoover with the Tharp shooting and the group’s nominal leader, Jerry Lynn Davis, with receiving stolen property and possession of illegal explosives. Reluctantly, the Bureau realized the time had come to shut the project down.

During the investigation of the Guild Theater bombing, the Yakopec home and those of other SAO members were raided by police. Investigators recovered two half pound blocks of C-4 plastique, HDP primers, blasting caps, 30-40 feet of fuses, SAO literature, stacks of cross-hair stickers ready to go and a small arsenal of weapons, including an unopened case of M-16’s valued at more than $60,000. During a simultaneous raid on the home of Genevieve and Richard Fleury, police seized ammunition, dozens of revolvers, lugers and eight bandoliers containing more than a thousand rounds of 30-caliber bullets. It was later revealed that some of these munitions had been transferred to the SAO from the Marine base at Camp Pendelton by a right-wing physician, Dr. Harold Young. Ex-Minuteman Dino Martinelli claimed he had been involved in the transfer and that the SDPD and FBI were aware of the thefts but did nothing. 80

American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) attorney Frederick Hetter discovered during a subsequent investigation “that [FBI infiltrator] Godfrey supplied 75% of the money for the SAO” in order for the terrorist army to acquire the weapons. 81

What were the results of exposing the extensive links between federal authorities and the Secret Army Organization? While Yakopec, Hoover and Davis went to prison, Godfrey, the FBI’s point-man, was rewarded with a job in the state fire marshal’s office. Agent Christiansen left the Bureau shortly after his role in the affair came to light. Refusing to talk, Christiansen would only tell reporters that “The FBI is taking good care of us.” 82 The FBI then continued with other illegal intelligence and terror programs directed against Bohmer and associates, including several assassination plots. Not one FBI agent or informer has been prosecuted.

Snitch Jacketing

Under the guidance of the FBI, informants were often able to work their way into positions of power, such as was the case with Chicago-BPP Chief of Security William O’Neal, or American Indian Movement bodyguard Douglas Durham. Such individuals were often considered valuable due to the (FBI-supplied) information they were able to provide. Besides misleading and provoking the infiltrated groups, another technique used by informants was to “snitch jacket” genuine activists, to make them appear to be the informants. One such person was Kwame Toure, formerly Stokely Carmichael.

Utilizing the services of an infiltrator who had worked his way into a position as the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee leader’s bodyguard, the Bureau deliberately created the false appearance that Stokely Carmichael was himself an operative. 83 In a memo dated July 10, 1968, the SAC, New York, proposed to Hoover that:

… consideration be given to convey the impression that CARMICHAEL is a CIA informer. One method of accomplishing [this] would be to have a carbon copy of an informant report supposedly written by CARMICHAEL to the CIA carefully deposited in the automobile of a close Black Nationalist friend … It is hoped that when the informant report is read it will help promote distrust between CARMICHAEL and the Black Community … It is also suggested that we inform a certain percentage of reliable criminal and racial informants that “we have it from reliable sources that CARMICHAEL is a CIA agent. It is hoped that the informants would spread the rumor in various large Negro communities across the land. 84

Pursuant to a May 19,1969 Airtel from the SAC, San Francisco, to Hoover, the Bureau then proceeded to “assist” the BPP in “expelling” Carmichael through the forgery of letters on party letterhead. The gambit worked, as is evidenced in the September 5, 1970 assertion by BPP head Huey P. Newton: “We … charge that Stokely Carmichael is operating as an agent of the CIA.” 85

Snitch jacketing has even resulted in the target’s death. This appears to have occurred in 1975 in the case of Anna Mae Pictou Aquash, a young Micmac woman working with the American Indian Movement on the Pine Ridge Reservation. According to attorney Bruce Ellison,

“I represented a young mother and AIM member named Anna Mae Pictou on weapons charges. She told me after her arrest that the FBI threatened to see her dead within a year unless she cooperated against members of AIM. In an operation [similar to those] previously used against members of the Black Panther Party, the FBI, through an informant named Doug Durham who had infiltrated AIM leadership, began a rumor that she was an informant.

“Six months later her body was found on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The FBI said she died of exposure. They cut off her hands, claiming that this was necessary to identify her, and buried her under the name of Jane Doe.

“We were able to get her body exhumed, and a second, independent autopsy revealed that rather than dying of exposure, that someone had placed a pistol to the back of her head and pulled the trigger. When I asked for her hands after the second autopsy, because she was originally not buried with her hands, an FBI agent went to his car and came back and handed me a box, and with a big smile on his face he said, ‘You want her hands? Here.'” 86

The FBI agents involved then used the morgue photos of Aquash to frighten another victim, Myrtle Poor Bear, a woman with a history of deep psychological disorder, for which she had undergone extensive treatment, explaining to their captive that she’d end up “the same way” unless she did exactly what they wanted. Poor Bear quoted Agent Wood as informing her, in specific reference to Aquash, that “they [Price and Wood] could get away with killing because they were agents.” Poor Bear was coerced into giving false testimony which led to the extradition of Leonard Peltier, who remains a political prisoner to this day. [See “Political Prisoners” section].

The Subversion of the Press

In 1960, the FBI implemented a formal COINTELPRO with the expressed intent of destroying pro-independence groups in Puerto Rico. In doing so, the Bureau engaged in the same kind of political warfare that was used by the United States in Chile and elsewhere in Latin America. In an August 4, 1960 memorandum to the Special Agent in Charge, San Juan, Director Hoover wrote:

“In considering this matter, you should bear in mind the Bureau desires to disrupt the activities of these organizations and is not interested in mere harrassment.” 87

San Juan complied, at least on the level of planting disinformation in the island press. Agents systematically planted articles and editorials, often containing malicious gossip concerning independentista leaders’ alleged sexual or financial affairs, in “friendly” newspapers, and dispensed “private” warnings to the owners of island radio stations that their FCC licenses might be revoked if pro independence material were aired.

There is clear evidence that agents “talked to” the owners of radio stations WLEO in Ponce, WKFE in Yauco and WJRS in San German about their licensing as early as 1963. One result was cancellation of the one hour daily time-block allotted to “Radio Bandera,” a program produced by the APU. Such tactics to deny a media voice to independentistas accord well with other, more directly physical methods employed during the 1970s, after COINTELPRO supposedly ended:

[There was] the bombing of Claridad [daily paper first of the MPIPR and then the PSP] printing presses which has occurred at least five times in the present decade. Although the MPI [now PSP] usually furnished the police with detailed information as to the perpetrators of these acts, not even one trial has ever been held on this island in connection with these bombings, nor even one arrest made. The same holds true for a 1973 bombing of the National Committee of the [PIP]. 88

In the same memo, Hoover recommended gearing up the COINTELPRO, using existing infiltrators within “groups seeking independence for Puerto Rico” as agents provocateurs. The director felt that “carefully selected informants” might be able to raise “controversial issues” within independentista formations. Further, he pointed out that such individuals might be utilized effectively to create situations in which “nationalist elements could be pitted against the communist elements to disrupt some of the organizations, particularly the MPIPR and … FUPI.”

Hoover also instructed that “the San Juan Office should be constantly alert for articles extolling the virtues of Puerto Rico’s relationship to the United States as opposed to complete separation from the United States, for use in anonymous mailings to selected subjects in the independence movement who may be psychologically affected by such information.”

The Bureau engaged in intensive investigation of independentista leaders both on the island and in New York in order to ascertain their “weaknesses” in terms of “morals, criminal records, spouses, children, family life, educational qualifications and personal activities other than independence activities.” The findings, however flimsy or contrived, were pumped into the media, disseminated as bogus cartoons or “political broadsides,” and/or surfaced within organizational contexts by provocateurs, all with the express intent of setting the leaders one against the other and at odds with their respective organizational memberships.

When evidence to support such redbaiting contentions could not be discovered, the FBI’s COINTELPRO specialists simply made it up:

MPIPR leaders, cognizant of the basic antipathy of Puerto Ricans, predominantly Roman Catholic, to communism, have consistently avoided, at times through public statements, any direct, overt linkage of the MPIPR to communism … The [San Juan office] feels that the above situation can be exploited by means of a counterintelligence letter, purportedly by an anonymous veteran MPIPR member. This letter would alert MPIPR members to a probable Communist takeover of the organization. 89

Not only did the Bureau’s systematic denial of media access to, spreading of disinformation about, and fostering of factionalism within the independentista movement have the effect of negating much of the movement’s electoral potential within the island arena itself, such tactics also subverted other initiatives to resolve the issue of Puerto Rico’s colonial status in a peaceful fashion. This concerns in particular a plebescite called for July 23, 1967. During the ten months prior to the scheduled referendum to determine the desires of the Puertorriqueno public with regard to the political status of their island, the Bureau went far out of its way to spread confusion. The COINTELPRO methods used included creation of two fictitious organizations Grupo pro-Uso Voto del MPI (roughly, “Group within the MPIPR in Favor of Voting to Achieve Independence”) and the “Committee Against Foreign Domination of the Fight for Independence” – as the medium through which to misrepresent independentista positions “from the inside .” One outcome was that Puertorriqueno voters increasingly shied away from the apparently jumbled and bewildering independentista agenda and “accepted” continuation of a “commonwealth” status under U.S. domination.

A 1967 Airtel from SAC, San Juan to J. Edgar Hoover describes a portion of the COINTELPRO methods to be used in subverting the 1967 United Nations plebescite to determine the political status of Puerto Rico:

[deleted] of the MPIPR Youth, has a personal following, and the San Juan Office feels that if [deleted] can be split from the MPIPR at this time, enough of the MPIPR Youth members would be sufficiently confused and disgruntled to effectively neutralize the MPIPR during the critical period just prior to the plebescite scheduled for July 23, 1967. 90

With this accomplished, the Bureau set about seeing to it the independentistas remained artificially discredited (and the overall Puertorriqueño option to mount a coherent effort to protest or reconvene the plebescite truncated) by shifting responsibility for the disaster onto its foremost victims:

It might be desirable to blame the communist bloc and particularly Cuba for the failure of the United Nations and to criticize Mari Bras and others for isolating the Puerto Rican independence forces from the democratic countries. 91

The other COINTELPRO’s also made use the news media. One tragic story concerns Jean Seberg, a well known actress and white supporter of the Black Panther Party. According to former FBI agent M. Wesley Swearingen, who worked in Los Angeles at the time, a culture of racism had so permeated the Bureau and its field offices that the agents seethed with hatred toward the Panthers and the white women who associated with them.

“In the view of the Bureau,” Swearingen reported, “Jean was giving aid and comfort to the enemy, the BPP … The giving of her white body to a black man was an unbearable thought for many of the white agents. An agent [allegedly Richard W. Held] was overheard to say, a few days after I arrived in Los Angeles from New York, ‘I wonder how she’d like to gobble my dick while I shove my .38 up that black bastard’s ass [a reference to BPP theorist Raymond “Masai” Hewitt, with whom Seberg was reputedly having an affair].” 92

On May 27, 1970, when Seberg was in her fifth month of pregnancy, Held sent a telegram to headquarters requesting approval to plant a story with Hollywood gossip columnists to the effect that Seberg was pregnant, not by her husband, Romaine Gary, but by a Panther. Held’s idea was approved, although implementation was to be postponed “approximately two additional months,” to protect the secrecy of a wiretap the Bureau had installed in the LA and San Francisco BPP headquarters, and until the victim’s “pregnancy would be more visible to everyone.” Hoover felt that Seberg should be “neutralized” because she’d been a financial supporter of the Black Panther Party.

The schedule was apparently accelerated, because on June 6, Held sent Hoover a letter and attached newspaper clipping demonstrating the “success” of his COINTELPRO action: a column by Joyce Haber, which had run in the Los Angeles Times on May 19. Known by the FBI to have been emotionally unstable and in the care of a psychiatrist before the operation began, Seberg responded to the “disclosure” by attempting suicide with an overdose of sleeping pills. This in turn precipitated the premature delivery of her fetus; it died two days later. Seberg held a press conference, and brought the fetus in a glass jar, to prove that it was white.

Henceforth, a shattered Jean Seberg was to regularly attempt suicide on or near the anniversary of her child’s death. In 1979, she was successful. Romaine Gary, her ex-husband, who all along maintained he was the father of the child, followed suit shortly thereafter. There is no indication that this was ever considered to be anything other than an extremely successful COINTELPRO operation.

The FBI actively promoted the idea that the Panthers and other black nationalists were anti-Semitic, in order to weaken their support “among liberal and naive elements.” In one indicent, the New York Office sent anonymous letters to Rabbi Meir Kahane of the right-wing Jewish Defense League to try to provoke a response against the BPP. In reference to a July 25, 1969 FBI report entitled, “JEWISH DEFENSE LEAGUE, RACIAL MATTERS” the New York Field Office proposed:

Referenced report has been reviewed by the NYO in an effort to target one individual within the Jewish Defense League (JEDEL) who would be the suitable recipient of information furnished on an anonymous basis that the Bureau wishes to disseminate and/or use for future counterintelligence purposes.

NY is of the opinion that the individual within JEDEL who would most suitably serve the above stated purposed would be Rabbi MEIR KAHANE, a Director of JEDEL. It is noted that Rabbi KAHANE’s background as a writer for the NY newspaper “Jewish Press” would enable him to give widespread coverage of anti-Semetic [sic] statements made by the BPP and other Black Nationalist hate groups not only to members of JEDEL but to other individuals who would take cognizance of such statements. …

In view of the above comments the following is submitted as the suggested communication to be used to establish rapport between the anonymous source and the selected individual associated with JEDEL:

Dear Rabbi Kahane:

I am a negro man who is 48 years old and served his country in the U.S. Army in WW2 and worked as a truck driver with “the famous red-ball express” in Gen. Eisenhour’s Army in France and Natzi Germany. One day I had a crash with the truck I was driving, a 2 1/2 ton truck, and was injured real bad. I was treated and helped by a Jewish Army Dr. named “Rothstein” who helped me get better again.

Also I was encouraged to remain in high school for two years by my favorite teacher, Mr. Katz. I have always thought Jewish people are good and they have helped me all my life. That is why I became so upset about my oldest son who is a Black Panther and very much against Jewish people. My oldest son just returned from Algiers in Africa where he met a bunch of other Black Panthers from all over the world. He said to me that they all agree that the Jewish people are against all the colored people and that the only friends the colored people have are the Arabs.

I told my child that the Jewish people are the friends of the colored people but he calls me a Tom and says I’ll never be anything better than a Jew boy’s slave.

Last night my boy had a meeting at my house with six of his Black Panther friends. From the way they talked it sounded like they had a plan to force Jewish store owners to give them money or they would drop a bomb on the Jewish store. Some of the money they will get will be sent to the Arabs in Africa.

They left books and pictures around with Arab writing on them and pictures of Jewish soldiers killing Arab babys. I think they are going to give these away at Negro Christian Churchs.

I thought you might be able to stop this. I think I can get some of the pictures and books without getting myself in trouble. I will send them to you if you are interested.

I would like not to use my real name at this time.

A friend”

It is further suggested that a second communication be sent to Rabbi KAHANE approximately one week after the above described letter which will follow the same foremat [sic], but will contain as enclosures some BPP artifacts such as pictures of BOBBY SEALE, ELDRIDGE CLEAVER, a copy of a BPP newspaper, etc. It is felt that a progression of letters should then follow which would further establish rapport with the JEDEL and eventually culminate in the anonymous letter writer requesting some response from the JEDEL recipient of these letters. 93

Political Prisoners

When the government can select a person for criminal persecution because of their political activity, when they can fabricate evidence against that person and suppress evidence proving that fabrication, and prosecute a person and put them in prison for any amount of time, let alone for life, then you have a political prisoner.

There are numerous people in American jails who’ve dedicated their lives to the transformation of their country, who put the benefit of their communities ahead of themselves, who believed that transformation was not only possible but they were willing to die for it. They were willing to die to end brutality, racism, economic discrimination, imperialism, war.

In the case of AIM, this has meant the wholesale jailing of the movement’s leadership. Virtually every known AIM leader in the United States has been incarcerated in either state or federal prisons since (or even before) the organization’s formal emergence in 1968, some repeatedly. After the 1973 siege of Wounded Knee the FBI caused 542 separate charges to be filed against those it identified as “key AIM leaders.” This resulted in 15 convictions, all on such petty or contrived offenses as “interfering with a federal officer in the performance of his duty.” Russell Means was faced with 37 felony and three misdemeanor charges, none of which held up in court. Organization members often languished in jail for months as the cumulative bail required to free them outstripped resource capabilities of AIM and supporting groups.

Another example was the “Panther 21” case, which in 1969 was the longest criminal trial in New York history. It took the jury just ninety minutes to reach “not guilty” verdicts in all of the 156 of the charges against the thirteen defendants who ultimately stood trial.

A fair accounting of American political prisoners is beyond the scope of this report, which seeks only to draw attention to the problem of political repression and the tactics used, making note of a few illustrative cases.

Leonard Peltier

U.S. Court of Appeals Judge Gerald Heaney, after reviewing numerous court transcripts and FBI documents, concluded that the United States Government overreacted at Wounded Knee. Instead of carefully considering the legitimate grievances of Native Americans, the response was essentially a military one which culminated in a deadly firefight on June 26, 1975, between Native Americans and FBI agents and U.S. Marshals.

While Judge Heaney believed that the “Native Americans” had some culpability in the firefight that day, he concluded the United States must share the responsibility. It never has. The FBI has never been held accountable or even publicly investigated for what one Federal petit jury and Judge Heaney concluded was complicity in the creation of a climate of fear and terror on the Pine Ridge Reservation.

The resulting firefight near Oglala was preceded by FBI documents internally declaring AIM to be one of the most dangerous organizations in the country and a threat to national security. It followed by two months the issuing of a position paper entitled “FBI Paramilitary Operations in Indian Country,” a how-to plan for dealing with AIM in the battlefield. It used such terms as “neutralization,” which in the document was defined as “shooting to kill.” It included the role of the then-Nixon White House in handling complaints as to such military tactics being utilized domestically.

It followed by one month the build-up of FBI personnel on the Pine Ridge Reservation with mostly SWAT team members from various divisions of the FBI. It followed by three weeks an inspection tour of the reservation by senior FBI officials and the reporting of concern by those officials for the widespread support enjoyed by AIM in the outlying communities on the Pine Ridge Reservation, such as Oglala.

The FBI headquarters document further referred to an area near Oglala which reportedly contained bunkers and would require the use of paramilitary forces to assault. Three weeks later a firefight broke out on the ranch of elders Cecelia and Harry Jumping Bull which lasted for nearly nine hours. FBI documents describe as many as 47 people being involved in the battle with SWAT teams of the FBI, the Bureau of Indian Affairs, and State police agencies.

Three young men lost their lives that day, each shot in the head, two FBI agents and one AIM member. Members of the American Indian Movement, before they escaped, sat and prayed for the three men who died that day. The FBI has always only considered that only two men died that day, their own agents.

One of the agents had in his briefcase a map of the reservation. It had the Jumping Bull ranch circled with the word “bunkers” written next to it. The bunkers turned out to be aged and crumbling root cellars.

Leonard Peltier and other AIM members from outside the reservation had come into the Jumping Bull area to join other local AIM members because the climate of violence on the reservation had gotten so intense that people felt the need to gain assistance from the outside, so men and women came in, including Leonard Peltier, and they brought with them their single-shot 22’s and their rusted shotguns and a few hunting rifles that they were able to get, and they were in a camp on the Jumping Bull ranch.

The government used the incident to increase its campaign of disruption and destruction of the American Indian Movement. FBI agents, dressed and equipped like combat soldiers, searched homes and questioned Pine Ridge residents at gunpoint. Armored vehicles patrolled the reservation, as did SWAT teams and National Guard helicopters.

This was accompanied by a public disinformation campaign by the FBI, designed to make Oglala residents and their guests appear to be the aggressors and, in fact, terrorists. The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights would soon report, “It is patently clear that many of the statements released to the media regarding the incident are either false, unsubstantiated, or directly misleading.”

Noting Leonard Peltier’s regular presence and involvement in AIM activities throughout the country, the FBI targeted him for prosecution from the desks of its agents. According to FBI documents, about two and a half weeks after the firefight, the Bureau was going to, in its own words, “develop information to lock Peltier into the case,” and it set out to do so.

The FBI eventually charged four AIM members, including Peltier, with the killing of the agents. No one has ever been prosecuted for the killing of AIM member Joe Stuntz that day.

After hearing testimony of numerous eyewitnesses to the violence directed at AIM members by the goon squad and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, two of Leonard Peltier’s codefendants were acquitted on self-defense grounds by an all-white jury in the conservative town of Cedar Rapids, Iowa — truly a remarkable thing, but people who were willing to keep their eyes and their ears open and listen to the truth, and were able, by a judge who had the courage and willingness to learn himself, to allow this evidence to be presented.

However, after those acquittals, the FBI analyzed why these two men, these two long-haired indian militant men could be acquitted by an all-white jury, and decided a new judge was needed. FBI documents show that in a meeting in Washington, D.C. at FBI headquarters, there was a decision made to “put the full prosecutive weight of the Federal Government” against Leonard Peltier.

Evidence shows the government used now admittedly false eyewitness affidavits to extradite Peltier from Canada. This would catch the attention of Amnesty International and the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals, but only a little bit.

The Court of Appeals would call such conduct “a clear abuse of the investigative process by the FBI” and give credence to the claims of indian people that if the government is willing to fabricate evidence to extradite a person in this country, it is willing to fabricate evidence to convict those branded as the enemy. Well, absolutely true, but Leonard Peltier remains in prison.

At Peltier’s trial the government presented evidence and argued to the jury that he personally shot and killed the agents. To do this, the government presented ballistics evidence purportedly connecting a shell casing found near the agents’ bodies with a rifle said to be possessed by Peltier on that day, and the coerced and fabricated eyewitness account of a terrified teenager, claiming that the agents followed Peltier in a van, precipitating the firefight in Oglala.

Documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act show that the ballistics evidence was a fraud; that the rifle could not have fired the expended casing found near the body. Further, the FBI had suppressed evidence showing the agents followed a pickup, not a van, into the compound, and thought someone else, not Peltier, was in that vehicle.

Citing the case of Leonard Peltier as an example, Amnesty International has called for an independent inquiry into the use of our criminal justice system for political purposes by the FBI and other intelligence agencies in this country. Amnesty cited similar concerns for other members of AIM and other victims of the COINTELPRO-type operations by the FBI.

Upon disclosure of these documents, a renewed effort in a new trial was sought from the courts. While concluding that the suppressed evidence “casts a strong doubt” on the government’s case, the appellate courts denied relief. The U.S. Attorney’s office has now admitted in court that it had no credible evidence Leonard Peltier killed the agents, and speciously claimed it never tried to prove it did. Under our system, if there is a reasonable doubt, then Leonard Peltier is not guilty, yet he has been in prison for nearly 25 years for a crime he did not commit.

The FBI still withholds thousands of pages of documents in this case, claiming in many instances that disclosure would compromise the national security. In the absence of such disclosure, no further efforts in a new trial are possible. And Leonard Peltier is not alone in his imprisonment for his political activities.

Mumia Abu Jamal

In the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, neutralization occurred by falsely creating the appearance that he was in commission of a crime he did not commit, to put him in prison. The cost of political activism can include judicial railroading into the electric chair, or the gas chamber or lethal injection.

It is unquestionable that from a very early age, Mumia Abu-Jamal was specifically targeted for neutralization by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Philadelphia Police, and that the pattern of police activity evident in that targeting, was continued, as it was in a number of comparable cases, so long as he maintained political activism, and this creates the basis to believe that he was in fact framed for the crime.

Mumia was deprived a fair trial, in which key witnesses were not allowed to testify, exculpatory evidence was excluded, and a key witness had been arrested numerous times for prostitution, opening the possibility that her testimony was paid or coerced. Although no motive was ever shown for why Mumia would have killed a police officer, there was a certainly a motive to neutralize and frame him.

Geronimo ji Jaga Pratt

Elmer Gerard (“Geronimo” or “G” ji Jaga) Pratt was an active member of the Los Angeles Black Panther Party (LA-BPP) Chapter during the counterintelligence campaign which resulted in the “shooting war” described earlier, between the US organization and the Panthers.

When Bunchy Carter and Ed Huggins were assassinated by US gunmen on January 17, 1969, it was discovered that Carter had prepared an audio tape for such an eventuality, designating Pratt his successor as head of the LA-BPP. Pratt was also named by Carter to succeed himself and Huggins as chapter representative on the national Panther Central Committee. 94 It was at precisely this point that he appears to have been personally targeted for “neutralization” through the application of COINTELPRO techniques.

Pratt was designated a “Key Black Extremist” by the L.A. Bureau office and placed in the National Security Index. 95 As a consequence, he was targeted not only for neutralization by the FBI, but, as former Panther infiltrator Louis Tackwood had pointed out, this automatically placed him “on the wall’ of the Los Angeles Police Department’s (LAPD) Criminal Conspiracy Section (CCS) “glass-house” (headquarters) as an individual to be eliminated by local police action. As the informant explained the CCS operation:

The room is broken up into divisions, see my point? Black, white, chicano and subversives. Everybody’s there. And every last one of the walls has pictures of them. This one black, the middle all white, and the chicanos all on this side. Most of the files are on the walls, you see? … They got everybody. Panthers, SDS, Weathermen. Let me explain to you. They got a national hookup. You see my point? And because of this national power, they are the only organization in the police department that has a liaison man, that works for the FBI, and the FBI has a liaison man who works with the CCS.” 96

The inevitable consequence of this was that the new LA-BPP was placed under intensely close surveillance by the FBI 97 and subjected to a series of unfounded but serious arrests by the Bureau’s local police affiliates at CCS.

A conspiracy investigation of Pratt was opened with regard to the robbery of a Bank of America facility already known by the Bureau to have been carried out by US members. 98 Pratt was also made the subject of a personalized series of COINTELPRO cartoons designed to make him a target for the attentions of US.

This was followed very closely by a Bureau effort to ensnarl both Pratt and Roger Lewis in a violation of the 1940 Smith Act and plotting of “insurrection.” 99

Four days after a similar raid on a Panther apartment in Chicago (the raid which left Mark Clark and Fred Hampton dead), forty men of the Special Weapons and Tactics (SWAT) squad, with more than a hundred regular police as backup, raided the Los Angeles Panther headquarters at 5:30 in the morning … (No suggestion has been made that the two raids were linked. But it’s interesting to note that Fred Hampton had been in Los Angeles one or two days before his death, meeting with Geronimo Pratt, whom Tackwood says was the main target of the second raid.) The Panthers chose to defend themselves, and for four hours they fought off police, refusing to surrender until press and public were on the scene. Six of them were wounded. Thirteen were arrested. Miraculously, none of them were killed. 100

The similarities between the Chicago and Los Angeles raids are undeniable, with a special local police unit closely linked to the FBI involved in both assaults, spurious warrants seeking “illegal weapons” utilized on both occasions, predawn timing of both raids to catch the Panthers asleep and a reliance upon overwhelming police firepower to the exclusion of all other methods. Both raids occurred in the context of an ongoing and highly energetic anti-BPP COINTELPRO, and – as in the Hampton assassination – bullets were fired directly into Pratt’s bed. Unlike the Chicago leader, however, Pratt was sleeping on the floor, the result of spinal injuries sustained in Vietnam. 101

Pratt was explicitly singled out for neutralization by the head of the Bureau’s LA-COINTELPRO section, Richard Wallace Held – the son of Richard G. Held, who orchestrated the coverup of FBI involvement in the Hampton-Clark assassinations. 102

In both instances, the FBI had managed to place an infiltrator/provocateur very high within the local BPP chapter – O’Neal in Chicago, in Los Angeles it was Melvin “Cotton” Smith, number three man in the LA-BPP, who provided detailed floorplans, including sleeping arrangements of the Panther facility, prior to the raid. 103 And, in both cases, surviving Panthers were immediately arrested for their “assault upon the police.” 104

When the resultant case against the L.A. Panthers was finally prosecuted in July, 1971:

… there was a “surprise” development. Melvin “Cotton” Smith turned up as a star witness for the prosecution. According to Deputy District Attorney Ronald H. Carroll, Smith had turned State’s evidence to escape prosecution … [However] on November 22, 1971, Tackwood testified … he had started working for [CCS Sergeant R.G.] Farwell in the fall of 1969, before the December 8 raid, and had been told by Farwell that [FBI infiltrator] Cotton Smith was to be Tackwood’s contact. Since Smith’s testimony was crucial to the State’s case, Tackwood’s exposure of Smith’s real role was a devastating blow to the prosecution. 105

One consequence of this revelation was that, after eleven days of deliberation, the jury returned acquittals or failed to reach any verdict whatsoever relative to charges of conspiring to assault and murder police officers brought against all thirteen Panther defendants. Oddly, nine of the defendants, including Pratt, were convicted of the relatively minor and technical charge of conspiring to possess illegal weapons. 106 In addition:

In order for the armed police assault on the Panther headquarters to have been justified, the police contention that the Panthers had fired on them first would have had to have been true, in which case at least some of the Panthers would have been guilty of conspiracy to commit murder and assault charges … The failure of the jury to return guilty verdicts on these charges represented a total repudiation of the CCS [and FBI] “conspiracy” theory that led to the raids on December 8. 107

On December 18, 1968, two black men robbed and shot a white couple, Caroline and Kenneth Olsen, on a Santa Monica, California tennis court. Caroline Olsen died one week later.

Pratt was accused of “the tennis court murder” in a letter dated August 10, 1969, addressed to LAPD Sergeant Duwayne Rice by an “underworld informant” and marked “Do Not Open Except In Case of My Death.” Although the informant had not died, Rice opened and read the accusation, and turned it over to CCS detective Ray Callahan for presentation to a grand jury which secretly indicted Pratt.

The informant would later testify at trial that Pratt, in direct personal conversation with him, had “bragged” of the crime. He further testified that a .45 calibre Colt automatic seized by the LAPD, belonging to Pratt but not ballistically matching the tennis court murder weapon, was actually the gun in question, Pratt having “changed the barrel” in order to alter its ballistic pattern. A second informant, who did not testify, corroborated this testimony. 108

The supposed informant corroboration testimony, it was later revealed, was obtained from Cotton Smith, already unmasked as an infiltrator/provocateur during the 1971 shootout trial and thus unable to credibly take the stand in the Olsen murder case. In 1985, Smith totally recanted his allegations against Pratt, stating unequivocally that the former Panther leader had been “framed,” but by “the FBI rather than local police”; he specifically named LA FBI COINTELPRO operative George Aiken as having been instrumental in the affair. 109

Kenneth Olsen, the surviving victim, identified Pratt as the murderer in open court, as did Barbara Reed, a shopkeeper who had seen the gunmen prior to the shooting. Mitchell Lachman, who had been near the tennis court on the evening of the murder, testified the gunmen fled in a vehicle matching the description of Pratt’s white over red GTO convertible.

However, both Olsen and the District Attorney omitted mention of the fact that he had positively identified another man – Ronald Perkins – in a police lineup very shortly after the fact, on December 24, 1968; they had similarly neglected to mention that LAPD personnel had “worked with” Olsen from photo spreads for some months prior to the trial, with an eye toward obtaining the necessary ID of Pratt. 110 Again, both the prosecutors and Mrs. Reed, the other witness who offered a positive ID on Pratt, “forgot” comparable police coaching, and all parties to the State’s case somehow managed to overlook the fact that both Olsen and Reed had repeatedly described both gunmen as “clean shaven,” while Pratt was known to have worn a mustache and goatee for the entirety of his adult life. 111 This leaves Lachman’s testimony that the assailants fled the scene in a white-over-red convertible “like” (but not necessarily) Pratt’s; even if it were the same car, it was well established – and never contested by the State – that virtually the whole LA-BPP had use of the vehicle during the period in question. 112

Pratt’s defense was that he was in Oakland, some 400 miles north of Santa Monica, attending a BPP national leadership meeting on the evening in question. Presentation of this alibi was, however, severely hampered by the refusal of many of those also in attendance – such as David, June, and Pat Hilliard, Bobby and John Seale, Nathan Hare, Rosemary Gross and Brenda Presley (all of the Newton faction) – to testify on his behalf. 113 Kathleen Cleaver, also in attendance at the meeting, did testify that Pratt was in Oakland from December 13-25, 1968, but even her efforts to do so had been hampered by COINTELPRO letters to her husband “explaining” that it was “too dangerous” for her to return to the United States during the trial. 114 With the weight of testimony heavily on the side of the prosecution, Pratt was convicted of first degree murder on July 28, 1972 and sentenced to seven years to life. 115

There were other problems with the case which went beyond Pratt’s inability to assemble defense witnesses. For instance, it did occur to the defense that if the FBI were tapping the phones of the BPP national offices in Oakland during December of 1968 – as seems likely – the Bureau itself might well be able to substantiate Pratt’s whereabouts on the crucial night. The FBI, however, submitted at trial that no such taps or bugs existed, an assertion which was later shown to be untrue. 116

The Bureau then refused to release its logs from the wiretaps, on “national security” grounds, until forced to do so by an FOIA suit brought by attorneys Jonathan Lubell, Mary O’Melveny and William H. O’Brien. 117 At that point (1981), the transcripts were delivered, minus precisely the records covering the period of time which might serve to establish Pratt’s innocence; “The FBI has indicated that the transcripts of the conversations recorded by these telephone taps have been lost or destroyed,” wrote the frustrated judge. 118

The State’s star witness, who first accused Pratt of the tennis court murder in his letter to Rice, testified to Pratt’s “confession” of the crime (i.e., “bragging”) and finally reconciled the prosecution’s ballistics difficulties, was none other than the infiltrator/provocateur, expelled from the BPP by Pratt, Julius C. (aka Julio) Butler. At the trial, the prosecution went considerably out of its way to bolster Butler’s credibility before the jury by “establishing” that the witness was not a paid FBI informant:

Q: And when you were working for the Black Panther Party, were you also working for law enforcement at the same time?

A: No.

Q: You had severed any ties you had with law enforcement?

A: That’s correct.

Q: Have you at any time since leaving the Sheriffs Department worked for the FBI or the CIA?

A: No.

Q: Are you now working for the FBI or CIA?

A: No.

This testimony was entered despite the fact that Los Angeles FBI Field Office informant reports concerning one Julius Carl Butler show he performed exactly this function, at least during the period beginning in August of 1969 (the time when he ostensibly made his initial accusation against Pratt) until January 20, 1970 (after Pratt was jailed without bond on the Olsen murder charge). During the whole of 1970, he filed monthly reports with the Bureau, he was “evaluated” by the FBI as an informant during that year, and his informant file was not closed until May of 1972 – immediately prior to his going on the witness stand. 119

Louis Tackwood has consistently contended that Butler was an FBI infiltrator of the BPP from the day he joined the Party in early 1968 and that he actively worked with CCS detectives Ray Callahan and Daniel P. Mahoney to eliminate Pratt. 120

At the trial, the Bureau also submitted that Pratt was not the target of COINTELPRO activity; several hundred documents subsequently released under the FOIA demonstrate this to have been categorically untrue. Further:

On 18 December 1979, eight years after Pratt’s trial, the California Attorney-General’s office filed a declaration in court that his defense camp had been infiltrated by one FBI informant. The Deputy Attorney-General wrote to the court and defense counsel on 28 July 1980, enclosing a copy of a letter of the same date from the Executive Assistant Director of the FBI. This letter revealed that two had been in a position to obtain information about Elmer Pratt’s defense strategy. 121

One reason for the seemingly blanket recalcitrance of the authorities – federal, state and local – in extending even the most elementary pretense of justice in the Pratt case may revolve around his quiet refusal to abandon the political principles which caused him to become a COINTELPRO target in the first place. Whatever the particulars of official motivation in the handling of the Pratt case, it must be assessed within the overall COINTELPRO-BPP context, especially a counterintelligence-related instructional memo, dated October 24, 1968, and sent by Bureau headquarters to all field offices. It reads in part:

Successful prosecution is the best deterrent to such unlawful activities [as dissident political organizing]. Intensive investigations of key activists … are logically expected to result in prosecutions under substantive violation within the Bureau’s jurisdiction. 122

To this, the Church Committee’s rejoinder in its investigation of the Bureau’s COINTELPRO illegalities still seems quite appropriate: “While the FBI considered Federal prosecution a ‘logical’ result, it should be noted that key activists were chosen not because they were suspected of having committed or planning [sic] to commit any specific Federal crime.” 123 After 27 years in prison and five habeus corpus motions, the conviction for the tennis court murder was finally vacated and Geronimo ji Jaga was released.

Dhoruba Bin Wahad

In 1966, the New York City Police Department commenced its own investigation of the Black Panther Party. Detective Ralph White of the New York City Police Department was directed to infiltrate the Black Panther Party and submit daily reports on the Party and its members. The NYPD regularly communicated with police departments throughout the country, sharing information on the BPP, its members and activities.

The NYPD was also working with the FBI on a daily basis. On August 29, 1968 FBI Special Agent Henry Naehle reported on his meeting with a member of an NYPD “Special Unit” investigating the BPP. SA Naehle acknowledged that the FBI?s New York Field Office (NYO) “has been working closely with BSS in exchanging information of mutual interest and to our mutual advantage.”

An FBI “Inspector?s Review” for the first quarter of 1969 shows that the NYPD, in conjunction with the FBI, had an “interview” and “arrest” program as part of their campaign to neutralize and disrupt the BPP. The NYPD advised the FBI that these programs have severely hampered and disrupted the BPP, particularly in Brooklyn, New York, where, for a while, BPP operations were at a complete standstill and in fact have never recovered sufficiently to operate effectively.

A series of FBI documents reveal a joint FBI/NYPD plan to gather information on BPP members and their supporters in late 1968. During an unprovoked attack by off-duty members of the NYPD on BPP members attending a court appearance in Brooklyn, the briefcase of BPP leader David Brothers was stolen by the NYPD and its contents photocopied and given to the FBI. Rather than seeking to prosecute the police officers for this theft, the FBI ordered “a review of these names and telephone numbers [so that] appropriate action will be taken.”

That “appropriate action” included an effort to label Brothers and two other BPP leaders, Jorge Aponte and Robert Collier, as police informants. On December 12, 1968, the FBI?s New York Office proposed circulating flyers warning the community of the “DANGER” posed by Brothers, Collier and Aponte. The NYO proposed that the flyers “be left in restaurants where Negroes are known to frequent (Chock Full of Nuts, etc.)” BSS later told the FBI that its proposal was successful in that David Brothers had come under suspicion by the BPP. An FBI memorandum dated December 2, 1968 captioned “Counterintelligence Program” lists several operations during the previous two-week period. It closes by stating that “every effort is being made in the NYO to misdirect the operations of the BPP on a daily basis.”

In August 1968, Dhoruba Bin Wahad, then known as Richard Dhoruba Moore, joined the BPP, and within a few months was promoted to a position of leadership. He was soon identified by the Bureau and by the NYPD as a “key agitator” and placed in the FBI’s “Security Index”, “Agitator Index,” and “Black Nationalist Photograph Album.” FBI supervisors instructed the NYO to “develop better liaison and closer working relationship with the NYCPD” in their investigation of Dhoruba Bin Wahad.

On April 2, 1969 Bin Wahad and 20 other members of the Black Panther Party were indicted on charges of conspiracy in the so-called “Panther 21” case. A NYPD memorandum notes that the Panther 21 arrests were considered a “summation” of the overt and covert investigation commenced in 1966. In a bi-weekly report to FBI Headquarters listing several counterintelligence operations the FBI reported that

To date, the NYO has conducted over 500 interviews with BPP members and sympathizers. Additionally, arrests of BPP members have been made by Bureau Agents and the NYCPD. These interviews and arrests have helped disrupt and cripple the activities of the BPP in the NYC area. Every effort will be made to continue pressure on the BPP…

In July 1969, the NYPD sent officers to Oakland, California to monitor the Black Panther Party’s nationwide conference calling for community control of police departments. An NYPD memorandum candidly acknowledged that community control of the police, “may not be in the interests of the department.”

Through its warrantless wiretaps of BPP telephones, the FBI learned that the BPP was trying to raise the $100,000 bail that had been set for Bin Wahad, whose release was considered by the BPP to be a priority over the other 20 defendants, due to his leadership role in the organization. Fundraising efforts were impeded by FBI/NYPD counterintelligence operations. For example, following a fund raiser at the home of conductor Leonard Bernstein, the FBI sent falsified letters to those in attendance in order to “thwart the aims and efforts of the BPP in their attempt to solicit money from socially prominent groups…” Unable to raise bail, Dhoruba Bin Wahad spent the next year incarcerated.

The FBI continued to target BPP community programs. For example, the FBI pressured several churches not to institute the BPP’s Free Breakfast for Children Program at their parishes. In September, 1969, an NYPD BSS representative told the FBI that the BPP was disintegrating in New York.

By March of 1970, the BPP had raised enough money to post bail for the most articulate leaders and chose Mr. Bin Wahad for release. The FBI ordered that he be immediately and continuously surveilled and that donors of bail money be identified. Director Hoover reminded his New York Office that the activities of Panther 21 defendants were of “vital interest” to the “Seat of Government”.

Through their warrantless wiretaps of BPP offices and residences, the FBI became aware in May 1970 of dissatisfaction among New York BPP members, including Bin Wahad, with West Coast BPP members. A COINTELPRO operation prepared by the New Haven Field Office and submitted to the FBI’s New York Office consisted of an FBI-fabricated note wherein Bin Wahad accused BPP leader Robert Bay of being an informant.

This successful operation resulted in Dhoruba Bin Wahad’s demotion within the BPP. Aware of his disillusionment, the FBI disseminated information regarding BPP strife to the media and participated in a plan to either recruit Bin Wahad as an informant or have BPP members believe he was an agent for the FBI.

In August 1970, BPP leader Huey P. Newton was released from prison. A plethora of counterintelligence actions followed which sought to make Newton suspicious of fellow BPP members, particularly those, like the Bin Wahad, who were on the East Coast.

By early 1971, the plan bore fruit. On January 28, 1971, FBI Director Hoover reported that Newton had become increasingly paranoid and had expelled several loyal BPP members:

Newton responds violently…The Bureau feels that this near hysterical reaction by the egotistical Newton is triggered by any criticism of his activities, policies or leadership qualities and some of this criticism undoubtedly is result of our counterintelligence projects now in operation.

This operation was enormously successful, resulting in a split within the BPP with violent repercussions. In early January 1971, Fred Bennett, a BPP member affiliated with the New York chapter, was shot and killed, allegedly by Newton supporters. Newton came to believe that Bin Wahad was plotting to kill him. Bin Wahad, in turn, was told by Connie Matthews, Newton?s secretary, that Newton was planning to have Bin Wahad and Panther 21 co-defendants Edward Joseph and Michael Tabor killed during Newton?s upcoming East Coast speaking tour. As a result of the split and fearing for his life, Bin Wahad, along with Tabor and Joseph, were forced to flee during the Panther 21 trial.

On May 13, 1971, the Panther 21, including Dhoruba Bin Wahad, were acquitted of all charges in the less than one hour of jury deliberations, following what was at that time the longest trial in New York City history. BSS Detective Edwin Cooper begrudgingly reported to defendant Michael Codd that the case “was not proven to the jury?s satisfaction.” Alarmed and embarrassed by the acquittal, Director Hoover ordered an “intensification” of the investigations of acquitted Panther 21 members with special emphasis on those, like Bin Wahad, who were fugitives.

On May 19, 1971, NYPD Officers Thomas Curry and Nicholas Binetti were shot on Riverside Drive in Manhattan. Two nights later, two other officers, Waverly Jones and Joseph Piagentini, were shot and killed in Harlem. In separate communiques delivered to the media, the Black Liberation Army claimed responsibility for both attacks.

Immediately after these shootings, the FBI made the investigation of these incidents, called “Newkill,” a part of their long-standing program against the BPP. Before any evidence had been collected, BPP members, in particular those acquitted in the Panther 21 case, were targeted as suspects. Hoover instructed the New York Office to consider [the] possibility that both attacks may be result of revenge taken against NYC police by the Black Panther Party (BPP) as a result of its arrest of BPP members in April, 1969 [i.e. the Panther 21 case].

On May 26, 1971, J. Edgar Hoover met with then President Richard Nixon who told Hoover that he wanted to make sure that the FBI did not “pull any punches in going all out in gathering information…on the situation in New York.” Hoover informed his subordinates that Nixon’s interest and the FBI’s involvement were to be kept strictly confidential.

“Newkill” was a joint FBI/NYPD operation involving total cooperation and sharing of information. The FBI made all its facilities and resources, including its laboratory, available to the NYPD. In turn, NYPD Chief of Detectives Albert Seedman, who coordinated the NYPD’s investigation, ordered his subordinates to give the FBI “all available information developed to date, as well as in future investigations.”

On June 5, 1971, Bin Wahad was arrested during a robbery of a Bronx after hours “social club”, a hangout for local drug merchants. Seized from inside the social club was a .45 caliber machine gun. Although the initial ballistics test on the weapon failed to link it with the Curry-Binetti shooting, the NYPD publicly declared they had seized the weapon used in May 19. The NYPD now had in custody a well-known and vocal Black Panther leader and the alleged weapon linked to a police shooting. His prosecution and conviction would both neutralize an effective leader and justify the failed Panther 21 case. But there was no direct evidence linking Bin Wahad to the shooting.

Pauline Joseph, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, became the prosecution?s star witness. Ms. Joseph first surfaced when she made a phone call to the NYPD on June 12, 1971, supplying her name and address and stating that Bin Wahad and Edward Joseph (a Panther 21 defendant who jumped bail with Bin Wahad) were innocent of the Curry-Binetti shooting. She told the police that Bin Wahad “did not do it, either the Riverside Drive [Curry-Binetti] shooting or the 32nd precinct [Piagentini-Jones] shooting…”

The first person to arrive at Ms. Joseph?s apartment was NYPD Lieutenant Kenneth Sauer, the head of the 24th precinct detective squad. Contrary to her testimony at trial, Ms. Joseph continued to maintain that Bin Wahad was innocent of the Curry-Binetti shooting. Later that day she was interviewed by BSS Detective Edwin Cooper. Joseph repeated that Bin Wahad was innocent.

Ms. Joseph was arrested, and committed as a material witness. For nearly two years she remained in the exclusive custody of the New York County District Attorney?s Office. She was repeatedly interviewed by state and federal authorities.

Ms. Joseph, while in the custody of the District Attorney, was recruited as a “racial informant” for the FBI. She was paid for her services and housed first in a hotel and then in a furnished apartment, paid for by the District Attorney. Pauline Joseph, a diagnosed paranoid schizophrenic, became the prosecution?s star witness in the case.

Dhoruba Bin Wahad was indicted for the attempted murder of Officers Curry and Binetti on July 30, 1971. Although the NYPD and FBI continuously interviewed Ms. Joseph, and prepared written memoranda of those interviews, the Assistant District Attorney represented that, except for a one paragraph statement made on the night of her commitment and her grand jury testimony, there were no prior statements. The text of Ms. Joseph?s initial phone call was withheld by the prosecution through two trials. No notes of memoranda of the initial, exculpatory interviews by Lieutenant Sauer and Detective Cooper were ever provided to Bin Wahad. Neither were reports of subsequent interiews during the two years she was in custody. After three trials, Dhoruba Bin Wahad was convicted of attempted murder and sentenced by Justice Martinisto to the maximum penalty, 25 years to life.

In December 1975, after learning of Congressional hearings which disclosed the FBI’s covert operations against the BPP, Dhoruba Bin Wahad filed a lawsuit in Federal District Court, charging that he had been the victim of numerous illegal and unconstitutional actions designed to “neutralize” him, including the frame-up in the Curry-Binetti case.

In 1980, the FBI and NYPD were ordered by the Court to produce their massive files on Mr. Bin Wahad and the BPP, that they had claimed did not exist. The FBI and NYPD documents revealed that Mr. Bin Wahad was indeed a target of FBI/NYPD covert operations and, for the first time, depicted the FBI’s intimate involvement in the Curry-Binetti investigation. The “Newkill” file, which was finally produced in unredacted form in 1987, after 12 years of litigation, contains numerous reports which should have been provided to Dhoruba Bin Wahad during his trial.

In a decision announced December 20, 1992, Justice Bruce Allen of the New York State Supreme Court ordered a new trial. The court exhaustively analyzed the prosecution?s circumstantial case, particularly the testimony of Pauline Joseph. The court found that the inconsistencies and omissions in the prior statements contradicted testimony “crucial to establishing the People?s theory of the case”. The inconsistencies, said the Court “went beyond mere details” and involve “what one would expect to have been the most memorable aspects of [the night of the shooting]”. On January 19, 1995, the District Attorney moved to dismiss the indictment, acknowledging that they could not prove their case. The indictment was dismissed. After more than 20 years in prison, Mr. Bin Wahad is at liberty today, residing in Accra, Ghana.

The COINTELPRO off-shoot “Newkill” and later “Chesrob” (an FBI acronym named after Assata Shakur, aka Joanne Chesimard) had other targets as well. Members of the Black Panther Party forced underground by Cointelpro-instigated violence were hunted down by local and federal law enforcement officials. In the three years after the 1971 BPP split, BPP members, Harold Russsel, Woody Green, Twyman Meyers and Zayd Shakur were killed during confrontations with law enforcement. Others were captured and charged with crimes. All were tried at a time when the public (and juries) knew nothing of COINTELPRO. During these trials, as in the trials of Dhoruba Bin Wahad and Geronimo Pratt, exculpatory evidence was withheld and other violations of the United States Constitution were committed. However, post-conviction motions on behalf of these former BPP members were unsuccessful and they remain in prison today. They include Anthony Jalil Bottom, Herman Bell, Robert Seth Hayes, Sundiata Acoli, Abdul Majid and Bashir Hameed. Two of these former BPP members died while in prison: Albert Nuh Washington in 2000 and Teddy Jah Heath in 2001. Both spent over 25 years in prison but were denied compassionate release even in their last days.

Marshall Eddie Conway

In 1970, Marshall Eddie Conway was Minister of Defense of the Baltimore chapter of the Black Panther Party. He was also employed by the United States Postal Service. Unbeknownst to Conway, some of the founding members of the Baltimore chapter were undercover officers with the Baltimore Police Department, who reported daily on his activities in the chapter. At the same time, the Federal Bureau of Investigation began its own investigation of Conway, recording his whereabouts, contacting his employers at the Post Office and maintaining “liaison” with the Baltimore Police Department.

On April 23, 1970, a Baltimore Police officer was shot and killed. Later that night, another officer named Nolan was fired upon by an unapprehended Black male. Two men arrested at the scene of the first shooting were allegedly associates of members of the Baltimore BPP chapter. Because of this, the police attributed both incidents to the BPP. Not surprisingly, Nolan then claimed that a picture of Conway, a well-known BPP member, resembled the unapprehended shooter. The next day, Conway was arrested while working at the Post office. He was charged with both the homicide and the attempted homicide of Nolan. Conway was held without bail.

Conway petitioned the court to have either Charles Garry or William Kunstler, two attorneys who consistently represented party members, represent him at his trial. Although both offered their services free of charge, the court denied Conway?s request. Instead, a lawyer was appointed who performed no pre-trial investigation and never met with Conway. Deprived of his rights, Conway chose to absent himself from much of his January, 1971 trial.

But the state’s case, relying solely upon Nolan?s equivocal and highly suspect photo identification, was shaky. To buttress their case, the state called one Charles Reynolds, a known jailhouse informant. He ultimately testified that while he shared a cell with Conway pre-trial, Conway made admissions to him. In fact, as was verified by the court transcript, Conway loudly objected when Reynolds was placed in his cell because everyone knew he was an informant. Reynolds, who was a fugitive from Michigan, was promised release if he testified. When the trial was over, he got his wish.

Represented by inadequate counsel and tried at a time when the existence of COINTELPRO was not known, Conway was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment. All appeals have been denied and he has been denied parole, as are all “lifers” in the State if Maryland. He has now been incarcerated for over 31 years and is probably the longest held political prisoner in the United States, if not the world.

Justice Hangs in the Balance

Although COINTELPRO was first exposed during the Watergate period, and incomparably more serious than anything charged against Nixon, it was virtually ignored by the national press and journals of opinion. A review of these programs demonstrates the relative insignificance of the charges raised against Nixon and his associates, specifically, the charges presented in the Congressional Articles of Impeachment. 124

In the early 1970s, there occurred a seemingly endless series of revelations about governmental transgressions. A “credibility gap” was engendered by the federal executive branch having been caught lying too many times, too red-handedly and over too many years in its efforts to dupe the public into supporting the U.S. war in Southeast Asia. This had reached epic proportions when Daniel Ellsberg leaked the “Pentagon Papers,” a highly secret government documentary history of official duplicity by which America had become embroiled in Indochina, and caused particularly sensitive excerpts to be published in the New York Times. 125

Then on March 8, 1971, a group calling itself the Citizen’s Commission to Investigate the FBI, broke into an FBI office in a small town called Media, Pennsylvania. They subjected the FBI to what the FBI has been habitually subjecting political dissidents to throughout the course of its history. That is, in Bureau parlance, a black bag job. The information they obtained was widely distributed through left and peace movement channels, and summarized the following week in the Washington Post. 126

An analysis of the documents in this FBI office revealed that 1 percent were devoted to organized crime, mostly gambling; 30 percent were “manuals, routine forms, and similar procedural matter”; 40 percent were devoted to political surveillance and the like, including two cases involving right-wing groups, ten concerning immigrants, and over 200 on left or liberal groups. Another 14 percent of the documents concerned draft resistance and “leaving the military without government permission.” The remainder – only 15% – concerned bank robberies, murder, rape, and interstate theft. 127

“Among the 34 cases [of infiltration] for which some information is available, 11 involved white campus groups, 11, predominantly white peace groups and/or economic groups; 10, black and Chicano groups; and two right-wing groups.” Furthermore, “in two-thirds of the 34 cases considered here, the specious activists appear to have gone beyond passive information gathering to active provocation.” 128

One year later, the political scandal known as Watergate began to unravel, when five men were arrested for breaking into the headquarters of the Democratic National Committee, located in the Watergate apartment and office complex in Washington, D.C. It was soon discovered that one of the men was employed by the Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP or CREEP) and that the break-in had been planned by two others with close ties to the White House.

In this peculiar and potentially volatile set of circumstances, a government-wide effort was undertaken to convince the public that its institutions were fundamentally sound, albeit in need of fine-tuning and a bit of housecleaning. It was immediately announced that U.S. ground forces would be withdrawn from Vietnam as rapidly as possible. Televised congressional hearings were staged to “get to the bottom of Watergate,” a spectacle which soon led to the resignations of a number of Nixon officials, the brief imprisonment of a few of them, and the eventual resignation of the president himself.

The ousting of Richard Nixon for his misdeeds on August 9, 1974 was described in the nation’s press as “a stunning vindication of our constitutional system.” 129 Yet the Watergate affair — allegedly the media’s finest hour — merely demonstrated their continued subservience to power and official ideology. Until the dust had settled over Watergate, there was virtually no mention of the government programs of violence and disruption or comment concerning them, and even after the Watergate affair was successfully concluded, there has been only occasional discussion.

Beginning in 1974, the Senate held hearings to investigate COINTELPRO and other intelligence agency abuses. No other congressional investigation into these types of matters has been so extensive, either before or since.

The Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, commonly known as the Church committee, after Chairman Frank Church, produced a extensive series of reports entitled, “Intelligence Activities and the Rights of Americans,” encompassing not only COINTELPRO, but also a wide variety of other subjects, including electronic surveillance by the National Security Agency, domestic CIA mail opening programs, the misuse of the IRS, the assassination of President Kennedy, covert actions abroad, assassination plots involving foreign leaders, and various topics related to military intelligence.

The Church committee found that COINTELPRO, presumably set up to protect national security and prevent violence, actually engaged in other actions “which had no conceivable rational relationship to either national security or violent activity. The unexpressed major premise of much of COINTELPRO is that the Bureau has a role in maintaining the existing social order, and that its efforts should be aimed toward combating those who threaten that order.”

This meant that the Bureau would take actions against individuals and organizations simply because they were critical of government policy. The Church committee report gives examples of such actions, violations of the right of free speech and association, where the FBI targeted people because they opposed U.S. foreign policy, or criticized the Chicago police actions at the 1968 Democratic National Convention. The documents assembled by the Church committee “compel the conclusion that Federal law enforcement officers looked upon themselves as guardians of the status quo” and cite the surveillance and harassment of Martin Luther King Jr. as an example of this.

With regard to COINTELPRO, the Church committee’s report was based, it says, on a staff study of more than 20,000 pages of Bureau documents, and included depositions of many of the Bureau agents involved in the programs. The FBI eventually acknowledged having conducted 2,218 separate COINTELPRO actions from mid-1956 through mid-1974. These, the bureau conceded, were undertaken in conjunction with other significant illegalities: 2,305 warrantless telephone taps, 697 buggings, and the opening of 57,846 pieces of mail. 130 This itemization, although an indicator of the magnitude and extent of FBI criminality, was far from complete. The counterintelligence campaign against the Puerto Rican independence movement was not mentioned at all, while whole categories of operational techniques – assassinations, for example, and obtaining false convictions against key activists – were not divulged with respect to the rest. There is solid evidence that other sorts of illegality were downplayed as well.

The FBI’s quid pro quo for cooperating in this charade seems to have been that none of its agents would actually see the inside of a prison as a result of the “excesses” thereby revealed. 131 The result was that

“The Justice Department has decided not to prosecute anyone in connection with the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s 15-year campaign to disrupt the activities of suspected subversive organizations.” 132

J. Stanley Pottinger, head of the Civil Rights Division, reported to the attorney general that he had found “no basis for criminal charges against any particular individuals involving particular incidents.” The director of the FBI also made clear that he saw nothing particularly serious in the revelations of the Church and Pike Committees. There is as yet no public record or evidence of any systematic investigation of these practices. The press paid little heed to the record that was being exposed during the Watergate period and even since has generally ignored the more serious cases and failed to present anything remotely resembling an accurate picture of the full record and what it implies.

The object of all this muscle-flexing was, of course, to create a perception that congress had finally gotten tough, placing itself in a position to administer appropriate oversight of the FBI. It followed that citizens had no further reason to worry over what the Bureau was doing at that very moment, or what it might do in the future.

In 1975 the Senate Select Committee concluded that in order to complete its (re)building of the required public impression, it might be necessary to risk going beyond exploration of the Bureau’s past counterintelligence practices and explore ongoing (i.e.: ostensibly post-COINTELPRO) FBI conduct vis a vis political activists. Specifically at issue in this connection was what was even then being done to the American Indian Movement, and hearings were scheduled to begin in July. But this is where the Bureau, which had been reluctantly going along up to that point, drew the line. The hearings never happened. Instead, they were “indefinitely postponed” in late June of 1975, at the direct request of the FBI. 133

The Church committee cites the testimony of FBI director Clarence M. Kelley as indication that even after the official end of COINTELPRO, “faced with sufficient threat, covert disruption is justified.” 134

The Legacy of COINTELPRO

The repression of dissident groups can be traced far back into US history, at least to the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts, by which “the Federalists sought to suppress political opposition and to stamp out lingering sympathy for the principles of the French Revolution,” or to the judicial murder of four anarchists for “having advocated doctrines” which allegedly lay behind the explosion of a bomb in Chicago’s Haymarket Square after a striker had been killed by police in May 1886. 135 The Pinkerton Detective Agency, a private investigating agency of the ninteenth century, made extensive use of informants, strike-breakers and provocateurs.

During the first World War, when the long-time, powerful head of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover led the Bureau of Investigation, there was a “mass deprivation of rights incident to the deserter and selective service violator raids in New York and New Jersey in 1918…” 136 What happened is that 35 Bureau Agents assisted by police and military personnel and a “citizens auxiliary” of the Bureau, “rounded up some 50,000 men without warrants of sufficient probable cause for arrest.”

In 1920 the Bureau, along with Immigration Bureau agents, carried on the “Palmer Raids” (authorized by Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer), which, in 33 cities rounded up 10,000 persons. The Church Committee report 137 talks of “the abuses of due process of law incident to the raids,” quoting a scholarly study 138 that these raids involved “indiscriminate arrests of the innocent with the guilty, unlawful seizures by federal detectives…” and other violations of constitutional rights.

The Church Committee cites a report of distinguished legal scholars 139 made after the Palmer Raids, and says the scholars “found federal agents guilty of using third-degree tortures, making illegal searches and arrests, using agents provocateurs….”

Attorney General Palmer justified his actions “to clean up the country almost unaided by any virile legislation” on grounds of the failure of Congress “to stamp out these seditious societies in their open defiance of law by various forms of propaganda”:

Upon these two basic certainties, first that the “Reds” were criminal aliens, and secondly that the American Government must prevent crime, it was decided that there could be no nice distinctions drawn between the theoretical ideals of the radicals and their actual violations of our national laws. Palmer’s “information showed that communism in this country was an organization of thousands of aliens, who were direct allies of Trotzky.” Thus “the Government is now sweeping the nation clean of such alien filth,” with the overwhelming support of the press, until they perceived that their own interests were threatened. 140

Elsewhere he described the prisoners as follows:

Out of the sly and crafty eyes of many of them leap cupidity, cruelty, insanity, and crime; from their lopsided faces, sloping brows, and misshapen features may be recognized the unmistakable criminal type.

Palmer’s declared purpose was “to tear out the radical seeds that have entangled American ideas in their poisonous theories.” 141

One early FBI target was Marcus Garvey, founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Under his leadership, UNIA, which to this day remains the largest organization of African Americans ever assembled, devoted itself mainly to the realization of various “bootstrapping” strategies (i.e., undertaking business ventures as a means of attaining its twin goals of black pride and self-sufficiency).

Nonetheless, despite UNIAs explicitly capitalist orientation, or maybe because of it, Hoover launched an inquiry into Garvey’s activities in August 1919. When this initial probe revealed no illegalities, Hoover, railing against Garvey’s “pro-Negroism,” ordered that the investigation be not only continued but intensified. UNIA was quickly infiltrated by operatives recruited specifically for the purpose, and a number of informants developed within it. Still, it was another two years before the General Intelligence Division was able to find a pretext – Garvey’s technical violation of the laws governing offerings of corporate stock – upon which to bring charges of “mail fraud.” Convicted in July 1923 by an all-white jury, the UNIA leader was first incarcerated in the federal prison at Atlanta, then deported as an undesirable alien in 1927. By then, the organization he’d founded had disintegrated. Hoover, in the interim, had vowed to prevent anyone from ever again assuming the standing of what he called a “Negro Moses.”

World War II brought a return of the FBI to counterintelligence operations as President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued a series of instructions establishing the basic domestic intelligence structure for the federal government. Roosevelt was advised by Hoover to proceed with the utmost degree of secrecy:

In considering the steps to be taken for the expansion of the present structure of intelligence work, it is believed imperative that it proceed with the utmost degree of secrecy in order to avoid criticism or objections which might be raised to such an expansion by either ill-informed persons or individuals having some ulterior motive … Consequently, it would seem undesirable to seek any special legislation which would draw attention to the fact that it was proposed to develop a special counterespionage drive of any great magnitude. 142

According to William C. Sullivan, Hoover’s assistant for many years:

Such a very great man as Franklin D. Roosevelt saw nothing wrong in asking the FBI to investigate those opposing his lend-lease policy — a purely political request. He also had us look into the activities of others who opposed our entrance into World War II, just as later Administrations had the FBI look into those opposing the conflict in Vietnam. It was a political request also when he [Roosevelt] instructed us to put a telephone tap, a microphone, and a physical surveillance on an internationally known leader in his Administration. It was done. The results he wanted were secured and given to him. Certain records of this kind … were not then or later put into the regular FBI filing system. Rather, they were deliberately kept out of it. 143

The passage in 1940 of the Smith Act, made “sedition” a peacetime as well as a wartime offense. The doctrine was laid out clearly by Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson in his opinion upholding of the Smith Act on the grounds “that it was no violation of free speech to convict Communists for conspiring to teach or advocate the forcible overthrow of the government, even if no clear and present danger could be proved.” For if the clear and present danger test were applied, Jackson argued, “it means that Communist plotting is protected during its period of incubation; its preliminary stages of organization and preparation are immune from the law, the Government can move only after imminent action is manifest, when it would, of course, be too late.” Thus there must be “some legal formula that will secure an existing order against revolutionary radicalism…. There is no constitutional right to `gang up’ on the Government.” Opposition tendencies, however minuscule, must be nipped in the bud prior to “imminent action.”

Hoover claimed that in 1940, “advocates of foreign isms” had succeeded in boring into every phase of American life, masquerading behind front organizations. 144 In 1939, Hoover told the House Appropriations Committee that his General Intelligence Division had compiled extensive indices of individuals, groups, and organizations engaged in subversive activities, in espionage activities, or any activities that are possibly detrimental to the internal security of the United States.. . . Their backgrounds and activities are known to the Bureau. These indexes will be extremely important and valuable in a grave emergency. 145

After World War II, the FBI’s attention turned from fascism to communism. This was the beginning of the Cold War. In March of 1946, Hoover informed Attorney General Tom Clark that the FBI had found it necessary to intensify its investigation of Communist party activities and Soviet espionage cases and it was taking steps to list all members of the Communist party and any others who might be dangerous in the event of a break with the Soviet Union, or other serious crisis involving the United States and the USSR.. . . It might be necessary in a crisis to immediately detain a large number of American citizens. 146

As for the Communist party, “ordinary conspiracy principles” sufficed to charge any individual associated with it “with responsibility for and participation in all that makes up the Party’s program” and “even an individual,” acting alone and apart from any “conspiracy,” “cannot claim that the Constitution protects him in advocating or teaching overthrow of government by force or violence.” 147

In 1948, the Mundt-Nixon bill, calling for the registration of the Communist party, was reported out of Nixon’s House Committee on Un-American Activities. Senate liberals objected, and after a Truman veto they proposed as a substitute “the ultimate weapon of repression: concentration camps to intern potential troublemakers on the occasion of some loosely defined future ‘Internal Security Emergency’,” 148 including, as one case, “insurrection within the United States in aid of a foreign enemy.” 149

This substitute was advocated by Benton, Douglas, Graham, Kefauver, Kilgore, Lehman, and Humphrey, then a freshman senator. Humphrey later voted against the bill, though he did not retreat from his concentration camp proposal. In fact, he was concerned that the conference committee had brought back “a weaker bill, not a bill to strike stronger blows at the Communist menace, but weaker blows.” The problem with the new bill was that those interned in the detention centers would have “the right of habeas corpus so they can be released and go on to do their dirty business.” 150

In 1949 the attorney general’s list was established, excluding members of “communist front organizations” from federal employment, since their influence on government policies would be such that those policies will either favor the foreign country of their ideological choice or will weaken the United States government domestically or abroad to the ultimate advantage of the … foreign power. Consequently, [Mr. Hoover] urged that attention be given to the association of government employees with front organizations. These included not only established fronts but also temporary organizations, spontaneous campaigns, and pressure movements so frequently used by subversive groups. If a disloyal employee was affiliated with such fronts, he could be expected to influence government policy in the direction taken by the group. 151

The first formal COINTELPRO, aimed at the U.S. Communist Party, commenced on August 28, 1956. Although this was the first instance in which the Internal Security Branch was instructed to employ the full range of extralegal techniques developed by the bureau’s counterintelligence specialists against a domestic target in a centrally coordinated and programmatic way, the FBI had conducted such operations against the CP and to a lesser extent the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) on an ad hoc basis at least as early as 1941.

Instructively, Hoover began at the same time to include a section on “Negro Organizations” in reports otherwise dedicated to “Communist Organizations” and “Axis Fifth Columnists.” In 1954 there was also the Communist Control Act, a statute outlawing the CP and prohibiting its members from holding certain types of employment.

Viewed against this backdrop, it is commonly believed that, however misguided, COINTELPRO-CPUSA was in some ways well intended, undertaken out of a genuine concern that the CP was engaged in spying for the Soviet Union. Declassified FBI documents, however, reveal quite the opposite. While espionage and sabotage “potentials” are mentioned almost as afterthoughts in the predicating memoranda, unabashedly political motives take center stage. The objective of the COINTELPRO was, as Internal Security Branch chief Alan Belmont put it at the time, to block the CP’s “penetration of specific channels of American life where public opinion is molded” and to prevent thereby its attaining “influence over the masses.”

From the outset, considerable emphasis was placed on intensifying the bureau’s long-standing campaign to promote factional disputes within the Party. To this end, the CP was infiltrated more heavily than ever before. It has been estimated that by 1965 approximately one-third of the CP’s nominal membership consisted of FBI infiltrators and paid informants, while bona fide activists were systematically snitch jacketed. A formal “Mass Media Program” was also created, “wherein derogatory information on prominent radicals was leaked to the news media.”

The programs directed against the Communist party continued through the 1960s, with such interesting innovations as Operation Hoodwink from 1966 through mid-1968, designed to incite organized crime against the Communist party through documents fabricated by the FBI, evidently in the hope that criminal elements would carry on the work of repression and disruption in their own manner. 152

In October 1961, the “SWP Disruption Program” was put into operation against the Socialist Workers Party. The grounds offered, in a secret FBI memorandum, were the following: the party had been “openly espousing its line on a local and national basis through running candidates for public office and strongly directing and/or supporting such causes as Castro’s Cuba and integration problems…in the South.” The SWP Disruption Program, put into operation during the Kennedy administration, reveals very clearly the FBI’s understanding of its function: to block legal political activity that departs from orthodoxy, to disrupt opposition to state policy, to undermine the civil rights movement.

CISPES

The FBI has continued to violate the constitutional rights of citizens through the 1980’s, up to 1990, as revealed by Ross Gelbspan in his book Break-Ins, Death Threats And The FBI. Utilizing thousands of pages of FBI documents secured through the Freedom of Information Act, Gelbspan found that activists who opposed U.S. policy in Central America “experienced nearly 200 incidents of harassment and intimidation, many involving…break-ins and thefts or rifling of files.” Gelbspan?s intent was to “add a small document to the depressingly persistent history of the FBI as a national political police force.”

During the 1980’s as the FBI waged an “active measures” campaign against the Committee In Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), a former FBI informant, Frank Varelli, became disillusioned with the Bureau’s attempt to destroy CISPES. Acting on disinformation supplied by the murderous Salvadoran National Guard, false information was forwarded by the FBI to the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The National Guard claimed that one FMLN coalition member, the Armed Revolutionary Group (GAR), “were to promote in North America a strong and violent campaign of agitation and propaganda on behalf of FMLN-FDR, having obtained immediate support from different sectors of North American society. Among the groups providing support were labor unions, Gay Power groups, Pro- Abortion groups, groups involved in the women’s liberation movement, and organizations that are opposed to the strengthening of the military forces of the US.” 153

Although not a shred of evidence existed linking these North American organizations to the GAR, the groups were included in the National Guard communique — at the direct request of the FBI.

According to Varelli, “Can you imagine if gay rights groups, abortion rights groups, the Equal Rights Amendment groups were known to support a group that had killed more than 20 police and soldiers in a year?” The informant added, “Once the FBI had this data in their files, they could proceed to investigate all these other groups. What is even worse, the FBI knew that this material from the National Guard was strictly disinformation. But they passed the same material along to the Secret Service, the Defense Intelligence Agency and other agencies in the intelligence community without alerting them to the fact that it was completely fabricated.” 154

The FBI found it “imperative to formulate some plan of attack against CISPES,” not because of its suspected involvement in terrorism or any other criminal activity, but because of its association with “individuals [deleted] who defiantly display their contempt for the U.S. government by making speeches and propagandizing their cause.” In plain English, CISPES was politically objectionable to the Bureau – no more, or less – and was therefore deliberately targeted for repression. 155

The investigation was ultimately expanded to include not only CISPES itself, but nearly 2000 organizations and individuals with which CISPES had some sort of interactive relations. This included pastors of local churches who were sympathetic to the Salvadorean peasantry, and Duke University, which provided meeting space.

The Bureau admits it paid Varelli from 1981 to 1984 to infiltrate CISPES. Varelli has testified that the FBI’s stated objective was to “break” CISPES. He recounts a modus operandi straight out of the annals COINTELPRO – from break-ins, bogus publications and disruption of public events to planting guns on CISPES members and seducing CISPES leaders in order to get blackmail photos for the FBI. 156

Alerted by Varelli’s disclosures, the Center for Constitutional Rights obtained a small portion of the Bureau’s CISPES files and released them to the press. The files show the U.S. government targeting a very broad range of religious, labor and community groups opposed to its Central America policies. They confirm that the FBI’s objective was to attack and “neutralize” these groups. 157 Mainstream media coverage of these revelations elicited a flurry of congressional investigations and hearings. Publicly exposed, the FBI tried to scapegoat the whistle blower. Its in-house investigation found Varelli “unreliable” and held that his reports of CISPES terrorism were false. The Bureau denied any violation of the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens or involvement in the hundreds of break-ins reported by Central America activists. A grand total of six agents received “formal censure” and three were suspended for 14 days. FBI Director William Sessions declared the case closed, a mere “aberration” due to “failure in FBI management.” 158

The Judi Bari Bombing

There is no better example than the Judi Bari “boom and bust” case to show that the FBI kept on well into the 1990s using covert action tactics against political movements and activists which they perceived as threats to the established order. One can make a case that the FBI is still using such tactics in the Bari case in 2001.

The car bombing of Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney on May 24, 1990 made headlines across the nation. At the FBI’s instigation, Oakland California police immediately arrested the two nonviolent environmental leaders and told the media that they were terrorists blown up by their own bomb. For the next two months, the FBI and police held a series of press conferences where they dribbled out false evidence of the pair’s guilt to feed a drumbeat of sensational media coverage.

But there was clear evidence that Bari was targeted because of her leftist environmental and labor organizing. Someone wanted to stop the two Northern California Earth First! leaders, the organizers of Redwood Summer, the largest ever campaign of nonviolent protests against corporate liquidation logging of the redwoods.

After two months, the Alameda County District Attorney declined to file any charges, citing lack of evidence against the pair. There is evidence, though, from the FBI’s own files, that agents falsified evidence, suppressed exonerating evidence, and conspired with Oakland police to frame the two bombing victims. Moreover, the records show that the FBI stubbornly refused to do a genuine investigation of the bombing, and failed to pursue real evidence and leads turned over to them, such as fingerprints or death threats Bari received.

Bari, the mother of two young daughters, was nearly killed when the powerful motion-triggered pipe bomb wrapped with nails for shrapnel effect blew up directly under her driver’s seat. The bomb caused horrifying maiming and crippling injuries, leaving her with a paralyzed right foot and unending pain for the rest of her life.

Bari and Cherney were on an organizing tour for their campaign, which at first they called Mississippi Summer in the Redwoods in homage to the civil rights movement that inspired it. The idea was to have mass nonviolent civil disobedience to delay the cutting of redwoods long enough to let voters decide the issue in November 1990, when two statewide timber reform initiatives would be on the ballot. The call went out to college students across America: Come to Northern California and save the redwoods.

In the June 10, 1990 San Francisco Examiner, writer Jane Kay raised the issue of law enforcement interest:

“Environmental activism is the new target of political suspicion and surveillance, and law enforcement agencies are stepping up action against those who demand radical change. Calling them agitators, outsiders, the mafia and extremists, local, state and federal investigators and prosecutors say they suspect them of violent acts — or the potential for them. They have responded in the last year with arrests, searches, seizures and questioning.”

FBI files contained evidence of Bari and Cherney’s innocence, but not until three years after the bombing did the FBI begin (grudgingly) to disclose that evidence, and then only under court order and Congressional pressure. A year after the bombing, with no progress in the official investigation, and with the FBI still telling the media that there were no other suspects but Bari and Cherney, the pair filed a federal civil rights suit against the FBI and Oakland Police, charging them with conspiring “to suppress, chill and ‘neutralize’ their constitutionally protected activities in defense of the environment.”

Now Bari and Cherney could investigate the bombing themselves, using civil discovery and subpoena power to compel the FBI and police to turn over files and evidence and to submit to questioning under oath. Ten years later, their charges are supported by over 20,000 pages of evidence, including FBI files and the testimony of over 70 FBI agents and police officers. The evidence of police misconduct is strong enough that the suit has survived repeated motions by the FBI and Oakland to dismiss it.

Bari and Cherney discovered that police crime scene photos clearly showed that the bomb ripped a two foot by four foot hole in the floorboard centered directly under the driver’s seat. FBI files revealed that a top explosives expert, agent David R. Williams, inspected the bombed car three weeks after the explosion and showed the local agents that the bomb had been completely hidden under the driver’s seat. He told them the bomb was detonated by a motion trigger, and had functioned as designed rather than exploding accidentally.

That put the lie to FBI statements that the bomb was on the back seat floorboard where they would have seen it — the principal claim used to justify arresting Bari and Cherney for possession and transportation of an explosive device. Knowing full well from their own expert’s testimony that Bari and Cherney were innocent victims, the FBI and Oakland police continued to lie to the media for another five weeks, saying they had plenty of evidence they were the bombers.

Bari’s last work in her life was to oversee a crucial phase of her lawsuit so that her legal team could take the case to trial on behalf of her children, to clear her name, and to secure the rights of all activists to be free from FBI interference with their constitutional rights. Although she died of cancer on March 2, 1997, the suit is continued by Bari’s estate and Cherney.

Bari felt sure as soon as it happened that timber interests were behind the bombing. She told investigating officers in the hospital that she began receiving death threats soon after she had announced plans for Redwood Summer. Police found copies of written threats in her bombed car.

Perhaps the key incident that made her the target of the bomb attack was her demand for government seizure of timber corporation property. Bari appeared in a coalition with Louisiana Pacific workers before an April 3, 1990 meeting of Mendocino County’s Board of Supervisors. LP had closed several sawmills as the trees were used up, leaving many of their workers jobless. Bari demanded that the county use eminent domain powers to seize LP corporate timberlands and turn them over to the workers.

Her property seizure demand and her coalition with disgruntled timber workers certainly focused negative timber industry attention on Bari, and probably the FBI’s too. A local paper published a large front page photo of Bari from the board meeting. A copy of that photo with the circle and cross hairs of a rifle scope drawn over her face was the most frightening death threat Bari received, she said. The photo was smeared with excrement and stapled to the door of the Mendocino Environmental Center along with a yellow ribbon, the symbol of timber industry support groups opposed to Redwood Summer and Proposition 130, the “Forests Forever” initiative on the November ballot.

If the “Forests Forever” initiative, Prop. 130, had passed in the fall 1990 election, the three big logging corporations of the redwood region — Georgia Pacific, Louisiana Pacific and Pacific Lumber — would have lost billions of dollars. It would have put an end to unsustainable liquidation logging and clearcutting, and ended industry control over the board that wrote timber regulations.

With an enormous financial motive to defeat the initiative, the corporations hired the giant public relations firm Hill & Knowlton to manage a PR campaign to turn public opinion against the initiative. An important part of the campaign was to derail Redwood Summer. It was drawing media attention to the overlogging, which would work in favor of Prop.130.

There were many signs of an orchestrated COINTELPRO-like campaign of harassment and intimidation against Bari and other environmentalists in the weeks before the bombing. Someone cooked up counterfeit EF! flyers and press releases calling for violence and sabotage during Redwood Summer, and Pacific Lumber and Louisiana Pacific knowingly distributed the fakes to workers, community members and media in a move calculated to deceive people about EF!’s nonviolent intentions and create an atmosphere of hatred and violence toward environmentalists.

As the FBI and police smeared Bari, Cherney and Earth First! as terrorists after the bombing, the PR company quickly put out propaganda falsely labeling Prop. 130 “the Earth First! initiative,” and calling it “too extreme.” By some reports, they spent up to $20 million by the time voters defeated the initiative by a narrow margin.

FBI records obtained through the Freedom of Information Act show that the FBI infiltrated and spied on Earth First! almost from its beginning in 1980, with the earliest known FBI report on it dated 1981. Heavily censored FBI documents obtained through Bari’s suit indicate weekly meetings in spring 1990 between an FBI agent and a secret informant in Northern California. Deposition testimony by Oakland Police Department officers and FBI agents states the FBI had an informant on EF! leaders, and the FBI told OPD that Cherney and Bari were already “the subjects of an investigation in the terrorist field” when they were bombed. They could have been under surveillance when the bomb was placed.

Just before the Bari bombing, the FBI was wrapping up “Operation Thermcon” in Arizona, a 3-year covert operation employing over 50 FBI agents designed to entrap and discredit EF! and its co-founder Dave Foreman as explosive-using terrorists. The FBI infiltrated a tiny Arizona EF! group with an undercover agent provocateur, won their trust over a couple of years, and tried to persuade them to use thermite, an explosive incendiary, to take down a power line. The activists refused the FBI infiltrator’s offer to provide explosives, and he settled for providing them with a cutting torch instead. The FBI provocateur provided the equipment, trained the activists in its use, chose the target, drove them to the site, and joined an FBI strike team in busting them in the act on May 31, 1989, almost a year to the day before the Bari bombing. Foreman was not directly involved, but was charged with conspiracy for providing $100 to the group. The resulting “Arizona Five” trial ended in plea bargains in August, 1991, with prison sentences for two of the activists, and with probation and fines for the others, including Foreman. Note that the Bari bombing came midway between the arrest and the trial in the Thermcon case.

Thermcon was the FBI’s code name meaning “thermite conspiracy,” but there was no thermite involved except in the FBI scheme to tie EF! to explosives despite the fact they have never advocated or used explosives in their entire history. The FBI had a public relations goal in Thermcon, to deceive the public into believing EF! were violent extremists so as to neutralize their effectiveness and isolate them from public support. It was a classic COINTELPRO against Earth First!

The true goal of Thermcon was revealed when Michael Fain, the FBI’s undercover agent provocateur in the case, accidentally left his body wire running and recorded his conversation with other agents. On the tape, Fain is heard to say, “I don’t really look for them to be doing a lot of hurting people. (Foreman) isn’t really the guy we need to pop — I mean in terms of an actual perpetrator. This is the guy we need to pop to send a message. And that’s all we’re really doing. . . . Uh-oh! We don’t need that on tape! Hoo boy!” The FBI’s true goal was to “send a message” to the public that Earth First! was a terrorist group.

Bari and Cherney’s investigation turned up several connections between the timber industry and the FBI, including a chummy “Dear Bill” letter sent to FBI Director William Sessions by a board member of Maxxam, which owns Pacific Lumber.

Louisiana Pacific had an FBI connection that directly involved bombs. One month before the Bari bombing, the FBI conducted a bomb investigator school in Humboldt County. FBI terrorist squad bomb expert Frank Doyle blew up cars with pipe bombs on a Louisiana Pacific logging site, then his students practiced investigating. Louisiana Pacific was the company whose timberlands Bari asked the government to seize, after which she immediately began receiving death threats.

There is the mystery of another bomb at an LP sawmill in Cloverdale, California, about an hour’s drive south of Bari’s home. Two weeks after the FBI bomb school (and two weeks before Bari’s car exploded), a partly-exploded firebomb was found. That bomb, a pipe bomb next to a can of gasoline, failed to fully explode or to ignite the gasoline. A cardboard sign near the firebomb bore the words, “LP screws millworkers,” a message that could be associated with Bari. A cardboard sign next to a firebomb makes no sense, unless it was designed to fail and to leave evidence that could be used to help to frame Bari for the Oakland bomb two weeks later.

The FBI lab found that the Cloverdale and Oakland bombs matched exactly in components and construction method, and were built by the same person(s). This same type of bomb was studied at the FBI bomb school two weeks earlier, according to testimony of an Oakland officer who was there. Investigators found a usable fingerprint on the cardboard sign, but there is no record that the FBI ever tried to match the print to Bari or Cherney, or to anyone else.

Less than an hour after the Oakland explosion, none other than Special Agent Frank Doyle, the bomb school instructor, took charge of the bomb scene investigation. There were at least five of his bomb school students at the scene, and they were overheard on a videotape joking about the scene being the “final exam.” Since he was the FBI’s terrorist squad bomb expert and their instructor the other FBI and Oakland bomb investigators who were at the scene first deferred to his pronouncements about the evidence.

It was Doyle who overruled the Oakland sergeant who got there first and said the bomb was under the driver’s seat and that he could see the pavement under the car through the hole in the seat bottom. It was Doyle who falsely said the bomb was on the floor behind the driver’s seat where it would have been easily seen. It was also Doyle who falsely claimed that two bags of nails found in the back of Bari’s car matched nails taped to the bomb for shrapnel effect, when in fact they were not even the same type, and were clearly different to the naked eye. (Bari worked as a carpenter, and always had tools and nails in the car.)

Other officers on the scene testified that Doyle argued with them, and quoted him saying, “I’ve been looking at bomb scenes for 20 years, and I’m looking at this one, and I’m telling you you can rely on it. This bomb was visible to the people who loaded the back seat of this car.”

Exactly three weeks later, when Supervisory Special Agent David R. Williams — the FBI crime laboratory’s top explosives expert — inspected the bombed car, he pointed out to Doyle that impact marks left by the pipe bomb’s end caps on the transmission tunnel and driver’s door, combined with the location of the hole in the floorboard and the damage to the seat cushion, clearly proved the bomb was under the driver’s seat, not in the back where Doyle had said.

Despite this early clear evidence that Bari was the target of attempted murder, the FBI and Oakland PD continued telling the media and the court that Bari and Cherney were their only suspects, and fabricating other stories about nails from the bomb matching nails found in Bari’s house. Repetition is a fundamental of the “Big Lie” propaganda technique, maintaining a drumbeat of false information until it is accepted by the media and the public as the truth. There can be no doubt that the FBI was knowingly lying about the evidence.

M. Wesley Swearingen, a retired career FBI agent with first-hand inside knowledge of COINTELPRO wrote in his book “FBI Secrets — An Agent’s Expose:

“(COINTELPRO) is still in operation today, but under a different code name. The operation is no longer placed on paper where it can be discovered through the release of documents under the Freedom of Information Act. ? A clear example of the FBI’s continued COINTELPRO is in the FBI’s alleged involvement in the 1990 bombing of the vehicle occupied by Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney … which was an effort to neutralize Judi Bari.”

There could hardly have been a more ideal location than Oakland for an FBI covert operation against Bari. The media coverage of the Oakland bombing was far more extensive, and was far more easily manipulated by the FBI, than if it had happened in Mendocino or Humboldt Counties where Bari lived and spent nearly all of her time. Oakland was the home of the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, which bore the brunt of the most extreme COINTELPRO of all, including multiple assassinations and frame-ups of its leaders. The Oakland Police Department has a long history of cooperating with the Bureau in targeting progressive and radical groups.

In deposition in the Bari case, OPD intelligence division chief Kevin Griswold admitted that his department keeps files on over 300 political groups and individuals in the Bay Area. Griswold said the Oakland Police have spied on EF! since 1984, and had their own informant inside EF! who reported back to Griswold on plans for upcoming demonstrations. This even though EF! is not based in Oakland and was not active there prior to the Bari bombing. Griswold said he shares information from his spies with the FBI. Encouraging and tapping into political spying operations run by local police like Oakland’s was one of the key ways the FBI got around the Attorney General’s guidelines that barred the bureau from purely political spying.

The special agent in charge of the FBI’s San Francisco office at the time of the bombing was Richard W. Held, a 26-year veteran of the FBI’s COINTELPRO “dirty tricks” campaigns against the Black Panthers, American Indian Movement and Puerto Rican independence activists.

Under deposition under oath in the Bari case, Held claimed he was unaware of the details of the Bari-Cherney case, and implied that it was not important enough to merit his attention. But files in the San Francisco FBI office contained a memo from Washington ordering his office to provide weekly reports on the Bari case so that headquarters could respond to the “numerous inquiries” they were getting from the media. Held’s testimony was also contradicted by FBI agents under his command who said in their depositions that they briefed him daily on the case.

The unraveling of the frame-up of Bari and Cherney may have brought an early end to Held’s 25-year FBI career. It is a strong tradition in the FBI not to embarrass the bureau. Held announced his early resignation from the FBI in May of 1993, the day before Bari held a press conference with the newly released Oakland Police crime scene photos exposing the FBI lies about the location of the bomb. Held told reporters he resigned because he expected reassignment to a new post and didn’t want to move his family. His father, Richard G. Held, had risen to the high post of Deputy Director of the FBI, and Held’s career track was headed for the top as well. He told reporters his mother cried when he told her he was resigning, so clearly Held’s FBI career was very important to him and his family, and it seems unlikely he would end it early just to avoid a relocation.

Other cases have come to light where the FBI allegedly used bombs to frame radicals twenty years before the Bari bombing. FBI agent provocateur David Sannes was used to get radicals in Seattle to use bombs so that they could be arrested and discredited. When he learned that the FBI wanted him to set up one bomber to die in a booby-trapped explosion, he refused to go along and went public.

Sannes said in an interview on WBAI radio “My own knowledge is that the FBI along with other Federal law enforcement agencies has been involved in a campaign of bombing, arson and terrorism in order to create in the mass public mind a connection between political dissidence of whatever stripe and revolutionaries of whatever violent tendencies.”

Though the Seattle cases happened in the early 1970s, just before the supposed termination of COINTELPRO, the goal of the FBI’s Operation Thermcon at the time of the Bari bombing 20 years later was to connect well-known Earth First! leaders with the use of explosives in the public mind, the same FBI strategy Sannes exposed in the Seattle cases.

Until the Bari-Cherney suit finally has its day in court, beginning October 1, 2001, many questions will lie unanswered. But it seems more rational than paranoid to believe there was an FBI and corporate timber connection to the bombing. Both timber and the FBI had ample motives, history, means and opportunity to bomb Bari. There are also FBI connections to both Maxxam/Pacific Lumber and Louisiana Pacific — even involving bombs, in LP’s case.

Big Timber’s PR firm may have planned the bombing and arranged the FBI cooperation in the frame-up, but it meshed perfectly with the FBI’s own Operation Thermcon to neutralize Earth First! by trying to connect its best known leaders to explosives, first Dave Foreman, then Judi Bari and Darryl Cherney.

Judi Bari was the redwood timber industry’s most outspoken, brilliant, and effective opponent. The industry would go to any length to defeat Prop. 130, because billions of dollars were at stake. Framing Judi Bari for a bombing would serve that goal. It would be used to demonize Earth First! as violent extremists. Then voters could be turned against the initiative by falsely linking it with Earth First!. And that’s exactly what they did.

The bombing was expertly planned, including the Cloverdale sawmill bomb which the FBI immediately cited as evidence of Bari’s guilt in her own bombing. Both bombs were expertly conceived and built, according to the FBI’s top expert, and the one in Bari’s car functioned as designed. Because of that, Bari believed the bombing was a professional hit.

The bombing happened in the midst of a sophisticated psychological warfare blitz of disinformation, intimidation and death threats, while Bari was organizing the biggest mass demonstrations against corporate overlogging in history, while she was taking on multi-billion dollar corporations and threatening their bottom line, and while she was building a coalition between timber workers and environmentalists by pointing to the corporations as the problem. She had also led Earth First! in her region to disavow tree-spiking and equipment sabotage, and insisted that a strict non-violence code be adhered to during Redwood Summer. The fact that Bari was an outspoken advocate of nonviolence gave all the more sensational impact to framing her as a terrorist bomber.

In depositions the FBI agents involved in the Bari investigation admitted that they never found any evidence whatsoever that she built the bomb that nearly killed her, or any other bomb, But the FBI has never issued any statement of exoneration or any apology. Not only has the FBI not retracted their false charges, they continue to repeat them. Speaking to students at an October 1999 Humboldt State University recruiting event, FBI agent Candice DeLong told the students: “Judi Bari was a terrorist. They were carrying that bomb.” The FBI recently spent $200,000 of the taxpayers’ money paying a U. S. Air Force laboratory to do simulation experiments aimed at showing that the bomb could have been in the back seat of Bari’s car after all.

Regardless who bombed Bari, it is plainly evident that FBI agents made a determined effort to frame her for it. After years of delay by the FBI, Bari’s civil rights suit is set for trial beginning October 1, 2001 in federal court in Oakland.

Footnotes

1 Civil Liberties, no. 273, December 1970; publication of the ACLU.

2 Race, Reform and Rebellion, Marable, pp. 102-3. For more on the Detroit rebellion, see Hersey, John, The Algiers Motel Incident, Alfred A. Knopf Publishers, New York, 1968. Of related interest, see Hayden, Tom, Rebellion in Newark: Official Violence and Ghetto Response, Vintage Books, New York, 1967; and Gilbert, Ben W., et. al., Ten Blocks From the White House: Anatomy of the Washington Riots of 1968, Frederick A. Praeger Publishers, New York, 1968. For an overall appraisal of the motivations underlying the urban rebellions from the perspective of a former CORE field secretary, see Wright, Nathan Jr., Black Power and Urban Unrest: Creative Possibilities, Hawthorn Books, Inc., New York, 1967. In general, see Boesel, David, and Peter H. Rossi (eds.), Cities Under Siege: An Anatomy of the Ghetto Riots, 1964-1968, Basic Books, New York, 1971.

3 Hoover, statement, July 26, 1950 (Harry S. Truman Library, Bontecore Papers), from Ideological Warfare: The FBI’s Path Toward Power, Frank M. Sorrentino, Associated Faculty Press, Inc. 1985.

4 See Memorandum from F.J. Baumgardner to W.C. Sullivan, October 1, 1964; Memorandum from Sullivan to A. Belmont, August 30, 1963; J. Edgar Hoover, chairman, Interdepartmental Intelligence Conference Report to McGeorge Bundy, special assistant to the President, July 25, 1961, enclosing IIC, Status of U.S. Internal Security Programs, July 1, 1960, through June 30, 1961. From Ideological Warfare, op. cit.

5 Special Report of Interagency Committee on Intelligence (Ad Hoc), Chairman J. Edgar Hoover, along with the directors of the CIA, DIA, and NSA, prepared for the President, June 25, 1970, marked “Top Secret.” A censored version was later released. Quotes are from Book 7, Part 1: Summary of Internal Security Threat.

6 C. Gerald Fraser, “F.B.I. Action in 1961 Called Still Harmful to Hopes of Blacks,” New York Times, April 6, 1974. See also Jesse Jackson and Alvin Poussaint. “The Danger Behind FBI Obstruction of Black Movements,” Boston Globe, April 2, 1974.

7

8 Nerve War Against Individuals, forwarded to CIA station in Guatemala City on June 9, 1954 http://www.parascope.com/ds/articles/nervewardoc.htm

9

10 John Kifner, “F.B.I. Gave Chicago Police Plan of Slain Panther’s Apartment,” New York Times, May 25, 1974. Although the act of FBI involvement in the Hampton assassination, along with other details of this major state crime, was not widely publicized outside of Chicago, nevertheless there were a few reports, such as this one. There can be no excuse for the general silence on this matter, which alone overshadows the entire Watergate Affair by a substantial margin.

11 On the significance of the threat, both actual and potential, as perceived at high levels of policy planning, see Noam Chomsky’s review of some of the evidence contained in the “Pentagon Papers” in _For Reasons of State_, chapter 1. For discussion of the impact on the American expeditionary force, see David Cortright, _Soldiers in Revolt_, Doubleday, 1975).

12 January 22, 1969 memo from SAC, Chicago, to Director Hoover, cited in The COINTELPRO Papers, by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, South End Press.

13 Kelly’s memorandum is reproduced in U.S. Department of Justice, Report of the Justice Department Task Force to Review FBI Martin Luther King, Jr., Security and Assassination Investigations, Washington, D.C., January 11, 1977.

14 Cross is mentioned in a memorandum from Atlanta agent Robert A. Murphy to J. Stanley Pottinger, at FBI headquarters, in July 1958. Interestingly, Murphy suggests the “SWP connection” is not a sufficient basis from which to undertake a COMINFIL investigation. Pottinger apparently did not agree; see Pottinger, J. Stanley, “Martin Luther King Report” (to U.S. Attorney General Edward H. Levi), U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., April 9,1976.

15 The King file was opened by the New York rather than Atlanta field office. It should be noted that although the Bureau has always maintained that there was no COMINFIL activity directed at King and the SCLC during the 1950s, the code prefixed to the files on both was “100,” indicating they were viewed as “internal security” or “subversive” matters. The numerical file prefix for material accruing from what was considered an investigation of civil rights activities per se would have been “44.”

16 See U.S. Senate, Committee on the Judiciary, FBI Statutory Charter – Appendix to Hearings Before the Subcommittee an Administrative Practice and Procedure, Part 3, 95th Congress, 2d Session, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1979, pp. 33-73.

17 Concerning King see Lee v. Kelly, Civil Action No. 76-1185, U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, “Memorandum Opinion and Order” (by U.S. District Judge John Lewis Smith, Jr.), January 31, 1977. Certain of the information on both King and Walker was attributed by FBI Associate Director Cartha D. DeLoach to NAACP head Roy Wilkens (see report on the SCLC from Atlanta agent Robert R. Nichols to DeLoach, dated July 1961). Wilkens later vehemently denied any such interaction between himself and the Bureau; see Lardner, George Jr., ‘Wilkens Denies Any Link to FBI Plot to Discredit King,” Washington Post, May 31, 1978.

18 Levison’s CP membership was never established although it was demonstrable that he maintained dose relations with party members from roughly 1949 through ’54. The speech attributed to Wofsy was actually drafted by Levison and can be found in Proceedings of the Fourth Constitutional Convention of the AFL-CIO, Vol. 1, American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial Organizations, Washington, D.C., 1962, pp. 282-9. Levison also had much to do with the preparation of the manuscript for King’s first book Stride Toward Freedom (Harper and Brothers Publishers, New York, 1958); see King, Coretta Scott, My Life With Martin Luther King, Jr., Holt, Rinehart and Winston Publishers, New York, 1969.

19 Such Bureau activities with regard to Levison were nothing new and seem to have stemmed largely from reports coming from “Solo,” two brothers – Jack and Morris (Chilofsky) Childs – who served from as early as 1951 as highly placed FBI informants within the CP, USA. It was they who appear to have originally ‘linked” Levison to the party even though they could never attest to his actual membership and essentially stopped referring to him by early 1954. J. Edgar Hoover’s predictable (and quite unsubstantiated) response was to declare Levison a “secret” CP member; see Garrow, op. cit., pp. 21-77.

20 Memorandum, SAC, New York, to Director, FBI, captioned “Martin Luther Kin& Jr., SM-C,” and dated June 21, 1962. Shortly thereafter, the New York field office began to openly affix a COMINFIL caption to correspondence concerning King and the SCLC. The Atlanta field office followed suit on October 23. The designation was officially approved by FBI headquarters supervisor R.J. Rampton in identical letters to the SACs on the latter date.

21 Targeting the SCLC under COINTELPRO-CP, USA was first proposed by the SAC, New York in a memorandum to Hoover dated September 28,1962. The operation was approved by memo in an exchange between Assistant Director William C. Sullivan and one of his aides, Fred J. Baumgardner, on October 8. The initial five newspapers selected for purposes of surfacing the anti-King propaganda were the Long Island Star-Journal, Augusta (GA) Chronicle, Birmingham (AL) News, New Orleans Times-Picayune, and the St. Louis Globe Democrat (where the reporter utilized in spreading the lies was Patrick J. Buchanan, later part of the White House press corps under Presidents Nixon and Reagan, as well as a current host on the Cable News Network Crossfire program).

22 The ELSURS authorization was signed by Kennedy on October 10, 1963 and provided to FBI liaison Courtney A. Evans. The attorney general’s main concern, detailed in the minutes of his meeting with Evans, seems to have been not that the bugging and tapping of King and the SCLC for purely political purposes was wrong but that it might be found out. Once Evans convinced him that this was genuinely improbable, “the Attorney General said he felt [the FBI] should go ahead with the technical coverage of King on a trial basis, and to continue if productive results were forthcoming.” See Denniston, Lyle, “FBI Says Kennedy OKed King Wiretap,” Washington Evening Star, June 18,1969. Also see OLeary, Jeremiah, “King Wiretap Called RFK’s Idea,” Washington Evening Star, June 19, 1969. Concerning continuation of the taps after the “trial period” had concluded, see Rowan, Carl, “FBI Won’t Talk about Additional Wiretappings,” Washington Evening Star, June 20,1969.

23 The New York SAC reported in a memorandum to Hoover, dated November 1, 1963, and captioned ‘Martin Luther Kin& Jr., SM-C; CIRM (JUNE),” that his agents had tapped all three SCLC office lines in his area of operations, with coverage on two lines beginning October 24. He also recommended installation of a tap on the residence line of civil rights leader Bayard Rustin; the tap was approved and installed in early January 1964. On November 27,1963, the Atlanta SAC informed Hoover by a memo captioned “COMINFIL, RM; Martin Luther Kin& Jr., SM-C (JUNE),” that Atlanta operatives had tapped King’s home phone and all four organizational SCLC lines in that city as of November 8.

24 For its disinformation campaign, the Bureau made ample use of “friendly media contacts” such as the nationally syndicated columnist Joseph Alsop, who proved quite willing to smear King in print on the basis of FBI “tips” lacking so much as a shred of supporting evidence. Concerning the IRS, as Garrow (op. cit.) notes at p. 114, ‘in mid-March [1964) the Internal Revenue Service reported that despite careful scrutiny it had been unable to discover any violations in either King’s or SCLC’s tax returns. Director Hoover scrawled ‘what a farce’ on the margin when the disappointing memo reached his desk.”

25

26 The instructions by Sullivan to Whitson and others are summarized in a memorandum from a member of the Internal Security Section named Jones to FBI Associate Director Cartha D. DeLoach on December 1, 1964, captioned simply ‘Martin Luther King, Jr.” For further information, see Lardner, George, Jr., “FBI Bugging and Blackmail of King Bared, Washington Post, November 19,1975. Also see Horrock, Nicholas M., “Ex-Officials Say FBI Harassed Dr. King to Stop His Criticism,” New York Times (March 9,1978), and Kunstler, William, “Writers of the Purple Page,” The Nation (No. 227, December 30, 1978).

27 Garrow, op. cit., p. 127. It appears DeLoach had to content himself with the “contributions” of right-wing hacks like Victor Riesel. However, Bureau efforts to place the “story” in more respectable quarters are known to have included overtures to – at the very least -reporters John Herbers of the New York Times, James McCartney of the Chicago Daily News, David Kraslow of the Los Angeles Times, Eugene Patterson of the Atlanta Constitution, Lou Harris of the Augusta Chronicle, and syndicated columnist Mike Royko. Herbers appears to have passed word of what was happening to civil rights leader James Farmer, who confronted DeLoach with the matter during an appointment on December 2, 1964.

28 There are serious questions concerning the possibility that the FBI might have been involved in the assassination of Martin Luther King. See, for example, Lane, Mark, and Dick Gregory, Code Name “Zorro:” The Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., Prentice-Hall Publishers, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1977. Also see Lawson, James, “And the Character Assassination That Followed,” Civil Liberties Review, No. 5, July-August 1978. Of further interest, see Lewis, David L., King: A Biography, University of Illinois Press, Urbana, 1979, especially pp. 399-403.

29 Gid Powers, Richard, Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover, The Free Press, New York, 1987, p. 4,58.

30 Churchill, Ward, The COINTELPRO Papers, http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpropapers/copap4.htm

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid.

33 Ibid.

34 For a review of some of these actions, see Dave Dellinger, More Power than We Know (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975); Gary T. Marx, “Thoughts on a Neglected Category of Social Movement Participant: The Agent Provocateur and the Informant,” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 80, no. 2 (September 1974, pp. 402-42).

35 Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, Agents of Repression: The FBI’s Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement, South End Press, Boston, MA, 1990.

36 Churchill, Ward, The COINTELPRO Papers, http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpropapers/copap7a.htm

37 Kunstler, William, My Life as a Radical Lawyer

38 Voices From Wounded Knee, 1973, (Institute for Policy Studies, Washington, D.C., 1974)p. 81. Warner and Potter were specifically ordered to wear civilian clothes, in order to hide the fact of direct military participation at Wounded Knee. They arranged for supply sergeants, maintenance personnel and medical teams to be present on the federal perimeter throughout the 71-day siege, all similarly attired in civilian garb. Further, the colonels placed a special army assault unit to be placed on 24-hour-a-day alert at Ft. Carson, Colorado for the duration of the siege. See The Nation, November 9,1974. Also see University Review, the same month.

39 Churchill, Ward, The COINTELPRO Papers, http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpropapers/copap7b.htm

40

41 Dave Dellinger, More Power than We Know (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1975) Many such cases have been exposed throughout the country.

42 For information on these and other FBI actions in Seattle, see Dellinger, op. cit., and Frank J. Donner, “Hoover’s Legacy,” Nation, June 1, 1974.

43 John M. Crewdson, “Ex-Operative Says He Worked for F.B.I. To Disrupt Political Activities up to ’74,” New York Times, February 24, 1975.

44 Donner Frank Donner, Protectors of Privilege: Red Squads and Police Repression in Urban America, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1990, p. , P. 207

45 Ibid.

46 Michael Novick, “BLUE BY DAY, WHITE BY NIGHT: Organized White Supremacist Groups in Law Enforcement Agencies,” People Against Racist Terror (PART), PO BOX 1990, Burbank, CA 91507, Revised and Updated, February 1993, p. 4

47 Ken Lawrence, “Vigilante Repression,” Covert Action Information Bulletin, Washington, D.C., Number 31, Winter 1989

48 Michael Novick, White Lies, White Power. The Fight Against White Supremacy and Reactionary Violence, Common Courage Press, Monroe, Maine, 1995, PP. 35-57

49 For an insider’s account of FBI racism and misogyny, particularly the Bureau’s role in the frame-up of Black Panther Party leader Geronimo ji Jaga [Pratt] see: M. Wesley Swearingen, FBI Secrets: An Agent’s Expose, South End Press, Boston, 1995

50 For a discussion of the nature of the FBI’s “White Hate Groups” COINTELPRO see: Donner 1980, PP. 204-211

51 Donner Frank Donner, Protectors of Privilege: Red Squads and Police Repression in Urban America, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1990, p. 206

52 Frank Donner, Protectors of Privilege: Red Squads and Police Repression in Urban America, University of California Press, Berkeley, 1990, p. 309

53 National Lawyer’s Guild, Counterintelligence: A Documentary Look at America’s Political Police, Volume One, Chicago, 1978, p. 7

54 “Documents detail FBI-Klan links in early rights strife,” Chicago Tribune, August 2,1978

55 Howell Raines, “Police Given Data on Boast by Rowe, The New York Times, July 14, 1978

56 Churchill and Vander Wall, The COINTELPRO Papers, p. 369

57 Elizabeth Wine, “Blacks Hope for Best as Feds Reopen Bombing Case,” Reuters, July 21, 1997

58 The COINTELPRO Papers, p. 170

59 Donner, Protectors of Privilege, p. 214

60

61 Churchill And Vander Wall, op. cit., p. 182

62 Frank Donner, PROTECTORS OF PRIVILEGE: Red Squads and Police Repression in America, University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1990, p. 360

63 ibid.

64 ibid.

65 Novick, op. cit., p. 4

66Donner, op. cit., p. 361

67 ibid.

68 ibid.

69 ibid.

70 Novick, op. cit., p. 4

71 Ridgeway, op. cit. pp. 76-81

72 Peter Biskind, “The FBI’s Secret Soldiers,” New Times, Volume 6, Number 1, January 9, 1976, pp. 21-22

73 Everett R. Holles, “A.C.L.U. Says F.B.I. Funded `Army To terrorize Antiwar Protesters’,” N.Y. Times, June 27, 1975. Information and quotes are from the 18-page single-space report submitted to the Senate Select Committee on June 27, 1975, unless otherwise indicated. See also Steven V. Roberts, “F.B.I. Informer Is Linked to Right-Wing Violence, N.Y. Times, June 24, 1974.

74 Biskind, op. cit., P. 21

75 ibid.

76 CARIC, op. cit., PP. 5-6

77 Biskind, op. cit., P. 23

78 Ibid.

79 Ibid.

80 CARIC, op. cit., p. 6

81 Churchill and Vander Wall, op. cit., p. 182. Also, Godfrey “has testified in a California court that the bureau gave him $10,000 to $20,000 worth of weapons and explosives for use by the [SAO] in addition to his $250-a-month salary as an informant.” John M. Crewdson, “Kelley Discounts F.B.I.’s Link to a Terrorist Group,” N.Y. Times, January 12, 1976.

82 Biskind, op. cit., P. 25

83

84 The Bureau was also busy trying to split up the SNCC leadership during this period. In Agents, op. cit., at p. 50, a document is reproduced proposing a bogus letter designed to achieve this effect vis a vis H. Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael and James Forman.

85 See Newton, Huey P., To Die for the People, Vintage Books, New York, 1972, p. 191.

86 Current Political Prisoners – Victims of COINTELPRO, roundtable dicsussion of Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, September 14, 2000 http://www.house.gov/mckinney/news/if_000914_humanrights.htm

87 Churchill, Ward, The COINTELPRO Papers, http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpropapers/copap4.htm

88 Ibid.

89 Ibid.

90 Ibid.

91 Ibid.

92

93 Churchill, Ward, The COINTELPRO Papers, http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpropapers/copap5a.htm

94 Summary, p. 5.

95 The “Key Black Extremist” tag seems to have been adopted for local use by the LA office COINTELPRO group from at least as early as January 20, 1969, based upon internal office memos. A memo from SAC, Los Angeles to the Director, dated 4/21/69 and captioned BLACK PANTHER PARTY-ARRESTS, RESTS, RACIAL MATTERS, recommended placing both Pratt and his second in command, Roger Lee Lewis, in the National Security Index.

96 Durden-Smith, op. cit., pp. 145-46.

97 This is readily borne out in a Bureau document, LA 157-3436 which, in Section V (MISCELLANEOUS ITEMS RELATING TO ACTIVITIES ASSOCIATED WITH THE BPP), describes how Pratt and several other Panthers, in a private residence, had sawn off the barrels of “15 to 20 weapons” (a legal act, so long as resulting barrel length is not less than 18 inches) during January of 1969; for no apparent reason, it stated that “it was believed the weapons were obtained in a burglary.” The document then goes on to itemize other legal activities in which Pratt had engaged, such as target practice in the Mojave Desert, travel to and from Kansas City, providing a guided tour of the local BPP office for Angela Davis, etc. This is intermixed with suggestions (no reference to evidence of any sort) that Pratt illegally possessed at least one .45 caliber submachinegun and engaged in other criminal behavior.

98 Memo from SCA, Los Angeles to the Director, FBI, dated 5/6/69 and captioned ELMER PRATT, BR–CONSPIRACY states, “As the Bureau is aware, Los Angeles is investigating one bank robbery committed by persons known to be involved in ‘US’ [several words deleted] UNSUBS 131; BANK OF AMERICA, NT & SA, Jefferson HUI Branch, 3320 South Hill Street, Los Angeles, California, 1/10/69, BR’).” The document then goes on, for no logical reason, to announce that BPP members “have possibly been involved in bank robbery matters in the Los Angeles area,” singles Pratt out by name in a heavily deleted passage, and ends with the observation that, “A bank robbery conspiracy case is being opened in the Los Angeles Office on ELMER PRATT … appropriate investigation to attempt to develop a conspiracy case will be conducted [emphasis added].” In a memo to the Director dated 6/5/69 and captioned “ELMER PRATT, BR–CONSPIRACY,” the SAC, Los Angeles, eventually acknowledged that the matter was being dropped because “no information has been developed to indicate that any Black Panther Party (BPP) members have been plotting bank robberies in Los Angeles or elsewhere.” The document concludes that the “captioned case is … subject to being reopened at any time information is received to indicate that Pratt or other members of the BPP are plotting or are responsible for bank robberies.”

99 Los Angeles office Field Report, LA 157-3553, dated 5/14/69. The character of the case reported upon is described as, “RM-SMITH ACT OF 1940; SEDITIOUS CONSPIRACY AND INSURRECTION.”The document was circulated to 8 Bureau offices, the Norton Air Force Base Office of Strategic Intelligence, 115th Military Intelligence Group, and the Secret Service in its initial distribution.

100

101 Summary at p. 6.

102 See Counterintelligence Report from the SAC, Los Angeles, to Director, FBI, (LA 157-17511), dated 6/3/69 and captioned “COUNTERINTELLIGENCE PROGRAM, BLACK NATIONALIST-HATE GROUPS, RACIAL INTELLIGENCE (BLACK PANTHER PARTY).” As to the younger Held’s position in the LA-COINTELPRO operation, see Swearingen deposition, op. cit., p. 1: “1 knew RICHARD WALLACE HELD as head of the COINTELPRO section in Los Angeles [during this period].”

103 Durden-Smith, op. cit., p. 136, quotes Tackwood describing Cotton Smith before the raid, “cutting up this cardboard and making this budding, and he’s putting little dolls with names on them, where they were, and associations and such and such.” The LA version of the O’Neal floorplan in Chicago was thus apparently in three dimensions.

104 Although not so straightforward as the Chicago memoranda in the aftermath of the HamptonClark assassinations, a memo from SAC, Los Angeles to Director, FBI, dated 12/8/69 and captioned BLACK PANTHER PARTY, ARRESTS-RACIAL MATTERS, indicates the Bureau was directly involved in the LA raid and that the local FBI office sought credit for this “success.” Among the BPP members listed in this document as having been arrested on (spurious) attempted murder charges and other offenses as a result of Bureau/police efforts on 12/8 are Robert Bryan, Roland Freeman, Craig Williams, Jackie Johnson, Wayne L. Pharr, Isiah Houston, Elmer Pratt, Sandra Lane Pratt (wife), Willie Stafford, Tommy E. Williams, Renee Moore, Paul Redd, Albert Armor, Melvin Smith and George Young. The situation seems to have sparked substantial interest at the very highest levels of the FBI, as is indicated by a memo on the matter between national COINTELPRO head W.C. Sullivan and his primary operational coordinator, G.C. Moore, dated 12/17/69, in which Moore expresses delight that, “Both Pratts were arrested for their participation in the shooting battle with the Los Angeles Police Department on 12-8-69.”

105 Churchill, Ward, The COINTELPRO Papers, http://www.derechos.net/paulwolf/cointelpropapers/copap5a.htm

106 See “63 Verdicts End Panther Trial”, Los Angeles Times, December 24, 1971.

107 The Glass House Tapes, op. cit., pp. 104-105.

108 Summary at pp. 1-2.

109 Richardson, Lee, “Ex-FBI Agent Exposes Use of Informants to Destroy the BPP,” Freedom Magazine, 18:5, January 1985, P. 31.

110 Summary at P. 3; this was a matter raised in a motion for retrial by Johnnie Cochran, which was denied by trial judge Kathleen Parker.

111 Ibid. at p. 2.

112 Ibid. at pp. 91-93.

113 On prosecution presentation, see ibid. at pp. 2-3; on Newton faction refusal to testify for Pratt, see pp. 94-96.

114 AIRTEL from SAC, Los Angeles, to Acting Director, FBI, dated 7/18/72 (caption deleted), from The COINTELPRO Papers.

115 An “URGENT” Teletype, sent at 1:26 PM, 7-28-72, from the Los Angeles Field Office to the Acting Director, FBI, and reading, “LOS ANGELES SHERIFF’S OFFICE INTELLIGENCE, ADVISED INSTANT DATE ELMER GERARD PRATT FOUND GUILTY FIRST DEGREE MURDER … DETAILS TO FOLLOW,” gives some indication of the ownership and priority the Bureau felt in this case, from The COINTELPRO Papers.

116 See Amnesty International, Proposal for a commission of inquiry into the effect of domestic in telligence activities on criminal trials in the United States of America, Amnesty International, New York, 1980, p. 29: “[The defense obtained] over 7,000 pages of FBI surveillance records dated after 2 January 1969. Elmer Pratt claimed earlier records would reveal that he was at a meeting in Oakland at the time of the murder on 18 December 1968 but the FBI’s initial response to this was that there had been no surveillance before 1969. This was later shown to be untrue.”

117 See Elmer G. Pratt v. William Webster, et al., United States Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia (No. 81 1907) for presentation of the case, and Pratt v. Webster; et. al. (508 F. Supp. 751 [19811) for the ruling. The federal “national security” argument may be found in the reply brief (No. 81-1907).

118 For Judge J. Dunn’s dissenting remarks, see his minority opinion In Re: Pratt, 112 Cal. App. 3d. 795,-Cal. Rptr. (Crim. No. 3 7534. Second Dist., Div. One. 3 December 1980); hereinafter referred to as “Minority’ and “Majority. ”

119 Proposal for a commission of inquiry into the effect of domestic in telligence activities on criminal trials in the United States of America, op. cit., pp. 107-110. Informant Reports and related memoranda on file.

120 Summary at p. 15.

121 Proposal for a commission of inquiry into the effect of domestic in telligence activities on criminal trials in the United States of America, op. cit., p. 25.

122 The document also posits “the absolute necessity for intensive investigative efforts in [political] matters.”

123 Select Committee, Final Report, Book III, OP. cit., p. 517.

124 See New York Times, August 4, 1974, for documents and commentary.

125 This led directly to one of the three post-1971 “COINTELPRO-type” operations:”The leaking of derogatory information about Daniel Ellsberg’s lawyer to Ray McHugh, chief of the Copley News Service.” (Spying on Americans, op. cit., p. 151).

126 The break-in at the Media resident agency, which occurred on the night of March 8, 1971, compromised the secrecy of COINTELPRO and thereby set in motion a process of high level “re-evaluation” of the program’s viability. This led to an April 28 memorandum from Charles D. Brennan, number two man in the COINTELPRO administrative hierarchy, to his boss, FBI Assistant Director William C. Sullivan. Brennan recommended the acronym be dropped, but that the activities at issue be continued under a new mantle “with tight procedures to insure absolute secrecy.” Hoover’s famous “COINTELPRO termination” memo of the following day was merely a toned-down paraphrase of the Brennan missive. In another connection, it should be noted that publication of the COINTELPRO documents taken from the Media office was not in itself sufficient to cause the FBI to admit either the long-term existence or the dimension of its domestic counterintelligence activities. Instead, this required a suit brought by NBC correspondent Carl Stern after the reporter had requested that Attorney General Richard Kleindienst provide him with a copy of any Bureau document which “(i) authorized the establishment of Cointelpro – New Left, (ii) terminated such program, and (iii) ordered or authorized any change in the purpose, scope or nature of such program” on March 20,1972. Kleindienst stalled until January 13, 1973 before denying Stern’s request. Stern then went to court under provision of the 1966 version of the FOIA, with the Justice Department counter-arguing that the judiciary itself “lacks jurisdiction over the subject matter of the complaint.” Finally, on July 16, 1973 U.S. District Judge Barrington Parker ordered the documents delivered to his chambers for in camera review and, on September 25, ordered their release to Stern.

The Justice Department attempted to appeal this decision on October 20, but abandoned the effort on December 6. On the latter date, Acting Attorney General Robert Bork released the first two documents to Stern, an action followed on March 7,1974 by the release of seven more. By this point, there was no way to put the genie back in the bottle, and the Senate Select Committee as well as a number of private attorneys began to force wholesale disclosures of COINTELPRO papers.

127 Examples abound. Early instances come with Jimmy Carter’s Executive Order 12036, signed on January 24,1978, which moved important areas of intelligence/counterintelligence activity under the umbrella of “executive restraint” rather than effective oversight, and the electronic surveillance loopholes imbedded in S. 1566, a draft bill allegedly intended to protect citizens’ rights from such police invasion of privacy, which passed the senate by a vote of 99-1 on April 20,1978. This was followed on December 4,1981 by Ronald Reagan’s Executive Order 12333, expanding the range of activities in which U.S. intelligence agencies might “legally” engage. Then there was the Intelligence Identifies Protection Act of 1982 which made it a “crime” to disclose the identities of FBI informants, infiltrators and provocateurs working inside domestic political organizations. And, in 1983, Reagan followed up with Executive Order 12356, essentially allowing agencies such as the FBI to void the Freedom of Information Act by withholding documents on virtually any grounds they choose. Arguably, things are getting worse, not better.

128 For analysis and texts of the Media documents, see Paul Cowan, Nick Egleson, and Nat Hentoff, State Secrets (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973).

129 Henry Steele Commager, “The Constitution Is Alive and Well,” New York Times, August 11, 1974. Commager, who has been forceful in defense of civil liberties and opposition to the Indochina war, states that prior to Nixon, “no President has ever attempted to subvert” the Constitution or “challenged the basic assumptions of our constitutional system itself.” But “the system worked” and the challenge was defeated.

130

131 The classic articulation of how this was rationalized came in the 1974 Justice Department report on COINTELPRO produced by an “investigating committee” headed by Assistant Attorney General Henry Peterson. After reviewing no raw files (innocuously worded FBI “summary reports” were accepted instead), but still having to admit that many aspects of COINTELPRO violated the law, the Peterson committee nonetheless recommended against prosecuting any of the Bureau personnel involved. “Any decision as to whether prosecution should be undertaken must also take into account several other important factors which bear on the events in question. These factors are: first, the historical context in which the programs were conceived and executed by the Bureau in response to public and even Congressional demands for action to neutralize the self-proclaimed revolutionary aims and violence prone activities of extremist groups which posed a threat to the peace and tranquility of our cities in the mid and late sixties; second, the fact that each of the COINTELPRO programs were personally approved and supported by the late Director of the FBI; and third, the fact that the interference with First Amendment rights resulting from individual implemented program actions were insubstantial.” The Senate Select Committee and other bodies went rather further in their research and used much harsher language in describing what had happened under COINTELPRO auspices, but the net result in terms of consequences to the Bureau and its personnel were precisely the same: none.

132 “Charges Over F.B.I.’s Tactics on Subversive Suspects Barred,” Washington Star-News; New York Times, January 4, 1975.

133 For an in-depth analysis of the disinformation campaign at issue, see Weisman, Joel D., “About that ‘Ambush’ at Wounded Knee,” Columbia Journalism Review, September-October 1975.

134

135 David Brion Davis, ed., _The Fear of Conspiracy_ (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1971). A fifth committed suicide before the sentence of death could be executed. Three others were sentenced to hanging as well, but were not executed. No proof was offered that any of the eight had been involved in the bomb-throwing.

136

137

138

139

140 See excerpts from Palmer in Davis, _op. cit._ On the role of the press, see Levin, _op. cit._.

141 See excerpt in Davis, op.cit.

142

143

144 Proceedings of the Federal-State Conference on Law Enforcement Problems of National Defense, August 5-6, 1940. From Ideological Warfare, op. cit. p. 44.

145 U.S. Congress, House, House Committee on Appropriations, First Deficiency Appropriations Bill, Hearing, February 19, 1941, pp. 188-89. 77th Congress, 1st session. From Ideological Warfare, op. cit. p. 43.

146 Personal and confidential memorandum from Hoover to Attorney General Tom Clark, March 8, 1946. Ibid., p. 44-45.

147

148

149

150

151

152

153 Ross Gelbspan, “Break-ins, Death Threats and the FBI: The Covert War Against the Central American Movement,” South End Press, Boston, MA, 1991, pp. 71-72

154 Ibid.

155 For further information on the FBI’s anti-CISPES operations, see Buitrago, Ann Mari, Report on CISPES Files Maintained by the FBI and Released under the Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, Inc., New York, January 1988.

156 U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, Break-Ins at Sanctuary Churches and Organizations Opposed to Administration Policy in Central America, Serial No. 42, 100th Congress, 1st Session, Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1988, Hearing of February 19 20,1987, pp. 432 ff. Also see Harlan, Christi, “The Informant Left Out in the Cold,” Dallas Morning News, April 6,1986, Gelbspan, Ross, “Documents show Moon group aided FBI,” Boston Globe, April 118,1988; and Ridgeway, James, “Spooking the Left,” Village Voice, March 3, 1987. For more on Varelli’s role and the FBI’s attempt to scapegoat him, see Gelbspan, Ross, “COINTELPRO in the’80s: The ‘New’ FBI,” Covert Action Information Bulletin, No. 31 (Winter 1989), pp. 14-16.

157 See, for example, the FBI teletype on p. 18. Also see Buitrago, Report on CISPES Files Maintained by FBI Headquarters and Released Under the Freedom of Information Act, Fund for Open Information and Accountability, Inc., New York, 1988; Groups Included in the CISPES Files Obtained from FBI Headquarters, Center for Constitutional Rights, 1988; Ridgeway, James, “Abroad at Home: The FBI’s Dirty War,” Village Voice, February 9, 1988.

158 U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, CISPES and FBI Counter-Terrorism Investigations, Serial No. 122, 100th Congress, 2nd Session, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1989, Hearing of September 16,1988, pp. 116-27. The changing public positions taken by Webster and Sessions concerning the FBI’s CISPES operations are well traced in Buitrago, Ann Mari, “Sessions’ Confessions,” Covert Action Information Bulletin, No. 31 (Winter 1989), pp. 17-19.

Bibliography

Books

The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents From the FBI’s Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States, by Ward Churchill & Jim Vander Wall, South End Press

Agents of Repression: The FBI’s Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement, by Ward Churchill & Jim Vander Wall, South End Press

COINTELPRO: The FBI’s Secret War on Political Freedom, by Nelson Blackstock, Pathfinder, 1975

FBI Secrets: An Agent’s Expose, by M. Wesley Swearingen, South End Press

War at Home: Covert Action Against U.S. Activists and What We Can Do About It by Brian Glick, South End Press

In the Spirit of Crazy Horse by Peter Matthiessen, 1991, Viking Press

Break-ins, Death Threats and the FBI: The Covert War Against the Central America Movement, by Ross Gelbspan, 1991, South End Press

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Boesel, David, and Peter H. Rossi (eds.), Cities Under Siege: An Anatomy of the Ghetto Riots, 1964-1968, Basic Books, New York, 1971

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U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on the Judiciary, Subcommittee on Civil and Constitutional Rights, CISPES and FBI Counter-Terrorism Investigations, Serial No. 122, 100th Congress, 2nd Session, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C., 1989, Hearing of September 16,1988

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Special Report of Interagency Committee on Intelligence (Ad Hoc), Chairman J. Edgar Hoover, along with the directors of the CIA, DIA, and NSA, prepared for the President, June 25, 1970,

Gary T. Marx, “Thoughts on a Neglected Category of Social Movement Participant: The Agent Provocateur and the Informant,” American Journal of Sociology, vol. 80, no. 2, September 1974

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See “63 Verdicts End Panther Trial”, Los Angeles Times, December 24, 1971.

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Hill, Robert A., “The Foremost Radical of His Race: Marcus Garvey and the Black Scare, 1918-1920,” Prologue, No. 16, Winter 1984.

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Nicholas M. Horrock, “The F.B.I.’s Appetite for Very Small Potatoes,” New York Times, March 23, 1975.

C. Gerald Fraser, “F.B.I. Action in 1961 Called Still Harmful to Hopes of Blacks,” New York Times, April 6, 1974.

Jesse Jackson and Alvin Poussaint, “The Danger Behind FBI Obstruction of Black Movements,” Boston Globe, April 2, 1974

Henry Steele Commager, “The Constitution Is Alive and Well,” New York Times, August 11, 1974

John M. Crewdson, “Black Pastor Got F.B.I. Threat in ’69,” New York Times, March 17, 1975

Vin McLellan, “FBI Heists Names of 1970 Student Strikers,” Boston Phoenix, March 5, 1974

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John Kifner, “Security Aide for Indians Says He Was F.B.I. Informer,” New York Times, March 13, 1975

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Everett R. Holles, “A.C.L.U. Says F.B.I. Funded `Army To terrorize Antiwar Protesters’,” N.Y. Times, June 27, 1975

Steven V. Roberts, “F.B.I. Informer Is Linked to Right-Wing Violence, N.Y. Times, June 24, 1974

John M. Crewdson, “Kelley Discounts F.B.I.’s Link to a Terrorist Group,” N.Y. Times, January 12, 1976.

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Denniston, Lyle, “FBI Says Kennedy OKed King Wiretap,” Washington Evening Star, June 18,1969.

OLeary, Jeremiah, “King Wiretap Called RFK’s Idea,” Washington Evening Star, June 19, 1969.

Rowan, Carl, “FBI Won’t Talk about Additional Wiretappings,” Washington Evening Star, June 20,1969.

Jacobs, James, “An Overview of National Political Intelligence,” University of Detroit Journal of Urban Law, No. 55, 1978.

Lardner, George, Jr., “FBI Bugging and Blackmail of King Bared, Washington Post, November 19,1975.

Horrock, Nicholas M., “Ex-Officials Say FBI Harassed Dr. King to Stop His Criticism,” New York Times, March 9,1978

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Lawson, James, “And the Character Assassination That Followed,” Civil Liberties Review, No. 5, July-August 1978.

The terrorism that terrorism wrought

David GilbertA post 9/11 essay by anti-imperialist political prisoner David Gilbert.

9-11-01: The terrorism that terrorism has wrought
by David Gilbert

Like most people in the U.S., I was horrified by the incineration and collapse of the two towers at the World Trade Center (WTC). Thinking about the thousands of people, mainly civilians, inside, I was completely stunned and anguished. (Even the attack on the Pentagon, certainly a legitimate target of war, felt grim in terms of the loss of so many lives, and of course the sacrifice of civilians on the plane.) In the days and weeks that followed the media, as well they should, made the human faces of the tragedy completely vivid.

At the same time, the affecting pictures of those killed, the poignant interviews with their families, the constant rebroadcast of the moments of destruction all underscore what the media completely fails to present in the host of widescale attacks on civilians perpetrated by the US government. With the pain to 9/11 so palpable, I became almost obsessed with what it must have been like for civilians bombed by the US in Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, and Yugoslavia – and what it would soon be like for civilians in Afghanistan, already just about the poorest and most devastated country in the world. (While the media very deliberately have downplayed the issue of civilian casualties from the bombings in Afghanistan, they already exceed those at the WTC.)

Terror Incorporated
The US bombing campaigns in Iraq and Yugoslavia not only killed hundreds of thousands of people but also deliberately destroyed civilian survival infrastructure such as electric grids and water supplies. And these are countries that don’t have billions of dollars on hand to pour into relief efforts. The subsequent US economic embargo of Iraq has resulted in, according to UN agencies, over 1 million deaths, more than half of them children.

In addition to bombing campaigns, the US is responsible for a multitude of massacres on the ground. 9/11/01 was the 28th anniversary of the ClA-sponsored coup in Chile that overthrew the democratically-elected president; the military then tortured, “disappeared” and killed thousands in order to impose a dictatorship. The US instigated terrorist bands and trained paramilitary death squads that have rampaged throughout Latin America for decades. In little Guatemala alone (population of 12 million) over 150,000 people have been killed in political violence since the U.S.-engineered coup against democracy in 1954.

Listing all the major examples would go way beyond the length of this essay. (See William Blum, Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II, 457 pp.) But what’s worse is that these bloody actions are taken to enforce the greatest terrorism of all: a political and economic system that kills millions of human beings worldwide every year. To give just one example, 10 million children under the age of 5 die every year due to malnutrition and easily preventable or curable diseases. Talk about anguish: how would you feel as a parent helplessly watching your baby waste away?

Since the early ’60’s, I actively opposed these U.S. terrorist attacks. But without the videos, the personal interviews, the detailed accounts, I never fully experienced the human dimensions. Now, seeing the pain of 9/11/01 presented so powerfully had me trying to picture and relive the totally intolerable suffering rained down on innocent people in these all too many previous and ongoing atrocities.

A Gift to the Right
What made the immediate grim event all the worse was the political reality that these attacks were an incredible gift to the right-wing in power. George W. Bush entered office with the tainted legitimacy of losing the popular vote by half a million. The report on the detailed recount of votes in pivotal Florida was about to come out. (When it did, the post-9/11 spin was that the recount the Supreme Court stopped would have left Bush in the lead. What got less attention was the finding that with a complete recount of all votes cast Bush was the loser.) The economy had started to tank. The Bush administration was making the US in effect a “rogue state” in the world: pulling out of the treaty on global warming, refusing to sign the treaty against biological warfare, preparing to scuttle the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. And the US and Israel had just exposed themselves, badly, by walking out of the World Conference Against Racism.

9/11/01 and its aftermaths became a tidal wave washing away public consideration of the above crucial issues. Not only did the crisis lead people to rally around the president, but it also provided the context and political capital to rush through a host of previously unattainable repressive measures that had long been on the right’s wish list. We’ve also seen an ugly rash of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate crimes and a new-found public support for racial profiling.

I won’t attempt here to summarize all the serious setbacks to civil liberties. One measure that struck closest to home for me was not covered in the mainstream media. Within hours of the first attack, the federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) moved about 20 of the political prisoners (PPs) – prisoners from the struggles for Black liberation, Puerto Rican independence, Native American and Asian activists, anti-imperialists, and peace advocates – held by the BOP into complete isolation. Most of these PPs weren’t even allowed to communicate with their lawyers – an extremely dangerous precedent. Once established, it clears the way for sensory deprivation and torture to try to break people down.

The BOP’s ability to move so quickly in prisons around the country means this plan had to have been on the drawing boards already – just waiting for the right excuse. What makes the “terrorist” label placed on these PPs all the more galling is that the Dept. of Justice knows full well that 1) while the CIA had past connections to the 9/11/01 suspects, these PPs certainly never have; and 2) while the perpetrators emulated (albeit on a smaller scale) the US’s cavalier attitude about “collateral damage” these PPs have always placed a high priority on avoiding civilian casualties. Indeed, it was precisely the US’s wanton slaughter of civilians – carpet bombings, napalm & Agent Orange in Vietnam; Cointelpro assassinations of scores of Black Panther & American Indian Movement activists at home – that impelled us to fight the system.

In pushing through the host of repressive measures without serious debate, the government has carried out a giant scam: a perverse redefinition of the dreaded term “terrorism.” Instead of the valid, objective definition of indiscriminate or wholesale violence against civilians (by which measure US-led imperialism is the worst terrorist in the world), the political and legal discourse has twisted the word to mean use of force against or to influence the government. If their “newspeak” goes uncontested, the long run implications for dissent are dire.

Global Strategy
More broadly these events have been a tremendous boon to what I believe has been imperialism’s #1 strategic goal since 1973: “Kicking the Vietnam syndrome.” You just can’t maintain a ruthless international extortion racket (to describe the imperial economy bluntly) without a visible ability to fight bloody wars of enforcement. They’ve taken the US public through a series of calibrated steps: from teeny Grenada in 1983, to small Panama in 1989, to mid-sized Iraq in 1991 and Yugoslavia in 1999. But public support for these ventures was only on the basis of short wars with minimal US casualties. Now the real sense of “America under attack” has generated widespread (if still shallow) support for accepting a more protracted war, even with significant US casualties.

Other repressive forces around the world have been quick to capitalize on these events. A key example is Israel’s prime minister, Ariel Sharon. Talk about terrorists … as Defense Minister in September, 1982, he was in charge of Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon when local, Israeli-sponsored militias were given free rein for three days of butchery in the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila. 1,800 Palestinians were murdered. Now as prime minister, he very deliberately encouraged and provoked Islamic militants opposed to the peace process to attack, and then he immediately cried “terrorism!” (the Palestinians are always labeled as the terrorists even though it is Israel who occupies their lands and Israelis have killed 4 times as may Palestinians as vice versa) to discredit and isolate Chairman Yasir Arafat, who’s taken great risks to try for a peace agreement. Sharon’s strategy, as he continues to tighten the occupation and escalate the violence, seems to be to completely finish off the peace process, either by liquidating the Palestinian Authority or by forcing the Palestinians into a heartbreaking civil war that would bleed their nation to death.

Funding and Fostering Terrorists
The US government played a key role in cultivating and empowering the forces charged with the 9/11/01 terror attacks. It’s not just a question of whom the US supported after the December, 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; CIA aid to guerrilla groups preceded that by over a year, while US interference through it’s client regime (until toppled in 1979), the Shah of Iran, went back at least to 1975. The goal was to destabilize a government friendly to the Soviets and sharing a 1,000-mile border. (See Blum’s Killing Hope – relevant chapter available here ) As the US National Security Adviser of the time, Zbigniew Brzezinski, boasted years later, “The secret operation was an excellent idea. Its effect was to draw the Russians into the Afghan trap.” Brzezinski also justified the harmful side effects from this medicine, “What was more important in the world view of history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire?” (see here for source )

Even though baited, the Soviet’s invasion was inexcusable. The CIA, of course, seized the opportunity with its largest covert action operation ever, aside from Vietnam. It did not, however, simply support existing national resistance forces. Progressive Islamic forces, tolerant of other sects & religions and supportive of education for girls, got no aid and withered. The CIA instead deliberately and directly cultivated the “fundamentalists” who interpreted Islam in the most sectarian and anti-female fashion. (I’m wary of the term “fundamentalist” lest it play into US biases about Islam, although in the same context as the reactionary Christian and Jewish fundamentalisms, it would apply. I prefer Ahmed Rashid’s terminology of “Islamic extremists” for forces who have interpreted, or, as he argues, distorted Islam as hostile to women and generally intolerant.)

One reason for this US preference was apparently the belief that the best way to mobilize people against a pro-Soviet regime that had offered land reform and education for girls was on the basis of religious opposition to such policies. Another reason was that most US aid was channeled through Pakistan’s Interservice Intelligence (ISI), which had close ties with these extremist factions. A prime example is Gulbuddin Hikmetyar who started with virtually no political base but became a major power thanks to US arms and funds. US aid breathed life into numerous reactionary and power-hungry warlords. It’s no wonder, then, that a devastating civil war raged in Afghanistan long after the Soviet’s 1989 withdrawal. In short, the US didn’t have the slightest concern for Afghans’ rights and lives; they were simply canon fodder in the Cold War. When this chaos gave rise to the Taliban, they were backed by the US and Pakistan as a counterweight to neighboring Iran, based on Taliban antipathy for Shia Islam. Also the US made an early bet in 1994 on the Taliban as the force that could bring the unified control and stability needed by the US company Unocal to build its projected multi-billion-dollar oil and gas pipelines through Afghanistan. This hope unraveled by 1998 but now has become quite realizable with the US military victory there. Bush’s new special envoy to Afghanistan, who will spearhead US efforts to put together a post-Taliban government, is Zalmay Khalilzad. This Afghan-born US citizen was, in the late ’90’s, a highly paid consultant to Unocal on how to achieve their Afghan pipeline.

The jihad against the Soviets in the 1980’s attracted Muslim militants from around the world, including Osama bin Laden. In 1986, he helped build the Khost tunnel complex, which the CIA was funding. As he later stated, “I set up my first camp where these volunteers were trained by Pakistani and American officers. The weapons were supplied by the Americans, the money by the Saudis.” From 1982 to 1992, 35,000 Muslim radicals from 43 different countries participated in the war in Afghanistan, many training at ClA-supported camps. Tens of thousands more were involved in education and support work. Now, the US demonizes one individual, but it is very unlikely that one man or one organization controls the range of groups that spun off from that baptism of fire … and therefore very unlikely that “neutralizing” bin Laden will at all contain the current cycle of violence.

The results of 20 years of US-abetted wars – even before the Taliban came to power – were 2 million deaths, 6 million refugees, and millions facing starvation in that nation of 26 million people. Infant mortality is the highest in the world, as 163 babies die out of every 1,000 live births, and a staggering 1,700 out of every 100,000 mothers giving birth die in the process. (Most of the background and data in the above section comes from Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia.) What a bitter irony that the US, which did so much to foster the most anti-female forces and to fuel the ferocious civil war, now justifies bombing that devastated country in part as a defense of women’s rights. (See Naomi Jaffe, “Bush, Recent Convert to Feminism,” in Sojourner: The Women’s Forum, November 2001.)

While the direct aid to the now demonized groups is sordid, the US has had a much more major role in breeding such terrorism. Imperialism’s top priority has been to destroy progressive national liberation movements, which sought to unite the oppressed and end the economic rape of the third world. Since 1989, the US has achieved major strides against national liberation with a counter-revolutionary offensive that uses both relentless brutality (such as sponsoring various terrorist “contra” guerrillas) and sophisticated guile (a key tactic is to divide people by fanning tribal, ethnic, and religious antagonisms). But the conditions of extreme poverty and despair for billions of people have only gotten worse. Thus, the very successes against national liberation have left a giant vacuum.… now being filled by real terrorists indeed.

The Emperor Has No Clothes
The dominant power has discredited as unspeakable some truths essential to an intelligent response to the crisis. 1. The horrible poverty and cruel disenfranchisement of the majority of humankind constitute the most fundamental violence and are also the wellspring for violent responses. 2. The reasons given for the 9/11/01 attacks don’t at all justify the slaughter of civilians, but they do in fact have some substance: US military presence and bolstering of corrupt regimes in Muslim countries (not to mention throughout the third world); the brutal occupation of Palestine; the large-scale, ongoing killing of civilians in Iraq; 3. The Pentagon and the WTC are key headquarters for massive global oppression.

The system’s massive terror does not at all mean that anything goes in response. As the Panthers used to say, ‘You don’t fight fire with fire; you fight it with water.’ Ghastly examples from Mussolini to Pol Pot have proven, at great human cost, that articulating real grievances against the system does not automatically equal having a humane direction and program. True revolutionaries spring up out of love for the people, and that’s also expressed by having the highest standards for minimizing civilian casualties. In the wake of 9/11/01 the example of the Vietnamese has become even more inspiring. They suffered the worst bombardment in history but always pushed for a distinction between the US government and the people, who could come to oppose it.

As painful and frustrating as US dominance is, the simplistic thinking that ‘my enemy’s enemy is my friend’ does not advance the struggle. All-too-many battles in the world are between competing oppressive forces. US embassies may be legitimate targets, but blowing up hundreds of Kenyan and Tanzanian workers and shoppers is unconscionable. And even within the belly of the beast, groups that would cavalierly kill so many civilians and who would hand such potent ammunition to the right-wing are not forces for liberation. At the same time, we can’t let our human commitments be blinded by floodlights that shine solely on this one tragedy. By any objective standard based on concern for human life, US-led imperialism is – by several orders of magnitude – the biggest and bloodiest terrorist in the world. We can not let the immediate horror, which the US did so much to engender, then be used to strengthen its stranglehold on humankind. Our first and foremost human responsibility is to oppose US-led imperialism.

The Challenges Ahead
It was encouraging that the anti-war movement here didn’t just collapse under the deafening roar of jingoism. But with the public’s attention on the US juggernaut in Afghanistan, it’s been hard to maintain the momentum of the anti-war, anti-globalization, and anti-racist movements. In many ways, it feels like a bleak time in the US because of the dramatic lurch to the right and the public support for many “anti-terrorist” measures that can be used in the future against dissenters. Nevertheless, even if the US completes this phase without a hitch, we are likely to be in for a protracted, if irregular, war as US action escalates the cycle of violence. While the situation is scary, it would only be scarier to give up because that would clear the way for continuing this highly dangerous skid into war and repression.

Even the most formidable fortresses of domination develop cracks over time. Contradictions in the war on terrorism as well as stresses in the economy and social fabric are likely to develop. Our task is to keep a voice alive for humane alternatives rather than let every setback add fuel to the imperial fire. We are not as isolated as in 1964, when it was completely unheard of to publicly challenge such interventions. However, in other ways our task will be more difficult than the decade-long struggle to end the war in Vietnam. This time, people in the US do feel directly attacked and those now labeled as the “enemy” are not a progressive national liberation movement.

To me, the most apt, if somewhat gloomy, analogy is to the “War on Drugs.” In both cases: 1. the CIA actively fostered some of the worst initial perpetrators. 2. The “war” response only makes the problem worse. (Making drugs illegal makes them much more expensive, which is the main factor promoting crime and violence; waging a “crusade” against Afghanistan and “Muslim fundamentalists” and backing Israel’s suppression of Palestine are likely to result in many more terrorists.) 3. Both wars pit unsavory foes against each other whose respective actions justify and animate the opposing side. 4. While each war is a colossal failure in terms of its stated aim, each is a smashing success in building public support for greater police/ military powers and in diverting people’s attention from the fundamental social issues. 5. Finally, sky high barriers have been erected to challenging these insane wars. You can’t raise the question of decriminalizing drugs or of addressing the roots of terrorism without getting hooted off the public stage. One difference, unfortunately, is that the war on terrorism is likely to become bigger, more violent, and lead to an even worse loss of civil liberties. A difference from facing the McCarthyism of the 1950’s is that, hopefully, recent currents of organizing and activism provide a basis to begin challenging such reaction from its onset.

Building an Anti-War Movement
The starting point is a love for and identification with other people. We don’t have to become callous about the lives lost at the WTC, even though the government has used them so cynically. Instead we have the job of getting those who’ve awakened to this pain to feel the injustice and suffering of the many other atrocities that have been perpetrated by the US. As hard as that may seem, many Americans were asking, “Why do ‘they’ hate us so much?” While the government and media have done their best to shut down public discussion of this pivotal issue, we can offer genuine and substantive responses, which resonate with the widely-held value of fairness. We have to break through the colossal double standard and insist fully on stopping all violence – whether bombings or hunger – against civilians and to be very clear on all the major examples. There’s a related specific need to puncture the dangerous misdefinition of “terrorism.”

In the discussion I’ve seen about building an anti-war movement, I wholeheartedly agree with those who insist that it must be anti-racist at its core. White supremacy is the bedrock for all that is reactionary in the US; in addition, the current gallop toward a police state will be used first and foremost against people of color. To be real about this, white activists have to go beyond the necessary process issues for making people of color feel welcomed at meetings and events. We also need to ally with and learn from their organizations and to develop a strong anti-racist program and set of demands.

It also seems crucial to develop strong synergy with the promising “anti-globalization” movement – not only because that’s where many young people have become active but even more importantly because the only long-term alternative to “the War on Terrorism” is to fully address the fundamental issues of global social and economic justice.

We face an extremely difficult period, without much prospect for the exhilaration or quick successes. But we don’t have the luxury of despair and defeatism – that only hands an easy victory to the oppressors. To draw a lesson from the past, we now celebrate the many slave rebellions, going back centuries before abolition became realizable, because they weakened that intolerable institution and kept resistance and future possibilities alive. History, as we’ve seen, goes through many unpredictable twists and turns. Principled resistance not only puts us in touch with our own humanity but also keeps hope and vision alive – like spring sunshine and rain – for when new possibilities sprout through the once frozen ground.

Human rights during wartime

The following is a public service message for Human Rights Day, received by Resistance in Brooklyn from political prisoner Jaan Laaman.

Human Rights During Wartime
By Jaan Laaman, Ohio 7 anti-imperialist political prisoner

The struggle for Human, civil and legal rights is always so important, but particularly now in this time of war and increasing repression. Even as they expand this ridiculous war in Afghanistan, Bush and his government are laying plans to spread imperialist war to other countries. Iraq, Somalia, Yemen and Sudan have all been singled out. Threats have been made against Liberation movements in Columbia, the Philippines and Nepal, as well as against popular leaders and governments of Cuba, Venezuela, Palestine and Libya. With no sense of shame or even irony, Bush threatens war against countries who may have some weapons of mass destruction. This from a country that without question has the largest stockpile of every form of weapon of mass destruction known to modern civilization, and a long historic record of using them against civilian populations around the world!

Domestically, with this so-called Homeland Defense, creepy and fascist sounding as that is, we’ve seen the corporate media totally cave, becoming the new cheerleaders for each new police state law and measure. The recent quickly passed federal anti-terror legislation, allowing seven-day police detention and other repressive measures, is almost certainly unconstitutional. Even more dangerous are the slew of executive branch orders enacted by Bush, Ashcroft and Ridge. Secret military tribunals, over 1100 people from across the country (including citizens and legal residents, not just overseas visitors), snatched up and detained incommunicado in federal custody, countless roadblocks and searches of vehicles, Muslim men across America being profiled and harassed, government agents and soldiers all over the place, etc., etc. Congress has NOT declared a State of War. There is no state of martial law existing anywhere in the U.S. As powerful as the presidency is, Bush and his executive department people have authority only under the Constitution and federal laws. Secret tribunals, disappearing people, warrentless searches, etc., are gross violations of American law. The corporate press may be silent about all this, but the people should not.

It isn’t overblown rhetoric to say that there is a more massive assault on Human and civil rights happening in the U.S. today than anytime since the founding of Human Rights Day over fifty years ago. Under a blizzard of waving flags, frequent “terror” and anthrax alerts to keep the public panicky, and an expanding war, a real police state apparatus is being laid down in the United States today.

Under the rubric of 9/11 and safety for the American people, rights are being stripped away across the board. For example, here in Massachusetts prisons, a new legal mail policy was just established, “due to recent national events.” Previously and based on court rulings, all legal mail was only opened in front of the prisoner, checked for contraband but not read. Now under the new policy, all legal mail is delivered to us already opened and censored, along with our regular mail. Various government agencies are jumping on the bandwagon to enact measures not even remotely related to 9/11.

As often happens, many political prisoners have been singled out and further victimized since September 11. Just hours after the plane attacks, most political prisoners in the federal system were snatched from their work assignments and thrown into extreme segregation. Many were held incommunicado for weeks and only recently have been able to contact their lawyers. People like Sundiata Acoli, Marilyn Buck, Father Phil Berrigan, Carlos Alberto Torres and Richard Williams; people who have been in captivity since the 70’s and 80’s and who don’t share bin Laden’s politics or have any connections with him, were opportunistically locked down. Some, like my comrade Richard Williams, are still in segregation in Lompoc penitentiary.

The need to powerfully proclaim support for Human Rights for all of us, in and out of prisons here in the U.S., as well as Human Rights for Afghani mothers and children and men, along with all the people of this planet is crucial. Probably most critical is the need to support all those people and nations under physical and verbal attack by the U.S. government. I wholeheartedly join with you in this, as well as salute you and your work. The struggle for Human Rights is never easy, but always so necessary.

For Peace and Justice!

12/10/01

Jaan Laaman (W41514)
Box 100
South Walpole, MA 02071